[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 102 (Monday, July 27, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9001-S9002]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        A TRAGEDY FOR THE NATION

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, what happened in the Capitol last Friday 
afternoon was a tragedy for our Nation. But for all of us here it was 
something more. It was a death in the family.
  We work here every day together, as Senators and as officers of the 
Senate, staff members, pages, policemen. We see them, and we pass them, 
over and over again. We talk to them. Some of them we get to know quite 
well.
  I have had the occasion myself to develop a very personal 
relationship with the man that was my security detail when I was the 
whip in the House, a man named George Awkward. He did for me what John 
Gibson did for Tom DeLay as the whip in the House. We got to be very 
personal friends. He had pizza at night, when we would get home late, 
with my wife and with me and my children.
  So I know how much these men and women put their lives on the line, 
and how much they mean to us on an individual basis, but also how far 
too often we walk past them; we take them for granted; we don't realize 
that they really are there for a very important purpose--protection of 
our constituents and of all of us and of this magnificent building in 
which we serve.
  Detective John Michael Gibson and Private First Class Jacob Joseph 
Chestnut were members of our congressional family. They died defending 
us.
  They died defending this Capitol building, this temple of law, where 
armed violence is a sacrilege against our democratic institutions.
  So much has been said in their praise, and yet we need to say more.
  So much has been offered in their honor, but we still look for ways 
to express our admiration, our gratitude, and most of all, our sorrow.
  We search for words to comfort their families, and it is not easy to 
find them. Some losses stay with us forever.
  But far more important than our words and our condolences is the 
assurance of Scripture, that our Chaplain just gave--that ``greater 
love than this has no man, than that he lay down his life for his 
frinds.''
  That is what the speaker of those words did, almost 2,000 years ago, 
and that is what officers Chestnut and Gibson did 3 days ago.
  In fact, it is what they were ready to do every day of their career, 
every day when they left their homes and loved ones knowing that they 
could face a deadly peril in their daily routine.
  We do not think often enough of the quiet bravery it takes for 
officers like those two--the men and women who come to work, here at 
the Capitol and in communities throughout the country, knowing that 
this might be the day they encounter mortal danger in the course of 
their duties.
  In my own area of the country--the gulf coast of Mississippi--we 
recently lost a policeman in the line of duty in Long Beach, MS, and it 
made an indelible mark on that community and on our whole region.
  Senators have already been informed that Officers Chestnut and Gibson 
will lie in state tomorrow in the great Rotunda of the Capitol.
  This is an extraordinary honor that we are paying to them. In the 
past only Presidents, Supreme Court Justices, and generals like 
Pershing and MacArthur, former Senator Pepper, have lain in repose in 
the Rotunda. But I think it is appropriate that these two men, who gave 
their lives just down one flight of stairs defending that room always 
packed with constituents, would have this moment to be honored the way 
they deserve in that room.

[[Page S9002]]

  There will be times throughout the day for Members and staff and the 
general public to pay their respects to these two men to say a prayer, 
to consider how much we owe these fallen colleagues and their families 
and all those like them throughout the country.
  It is important to note that the public will be welcome in the 
Capitol during that time, and welcome to join us in our solemn tribute 
in the Rotunda, with the exception of only one hour in the afternoon 
where there will be a private opportunity for Members of Congress to 
observe and to pay our respects to these men.
  It is most fitting that the public, our constituents from all over 
the country and all over the world, should be there with us, as they 
will be, for Officers Chestnut and Gibson and their colleagues were 
defending them, too.
  I can understand the wish in some quarters to make the Capitol 
absolutely impregnable, or even to close it to the general public so 
that nothing like this could ever happen again. We will, of course, 
examine closely all of our security procedures again as we continue to 
do almost daily to see whether anything can be done to improve it. But 
we have to keep in mind that this Capitol is, more than any other 
edifice in the country, and certainly I believe in the world, the 
people's house.
  When I walk out of my majority leader's office and take three steps, 
I am standing with constituents from all across America. They are there 
every day. Sometimes they seem surprised that they would see Senators 
and Congressman walking amongst them. But that is the way it should be. 
This building is accessible and it amazes our visitors, domestic and 
foreign, many of whom have had chance encounters with Members of 
Congress, the President's Cabinet, in the halls, in the dining rooms, 
in the elevators. The reason the Capitol is so open is that our society 
is so open. We pride ourselves on that fact.

  The people's access to their Capitol is the physical manifestation of 
democracy. It represents something rare and precious, something all 
Americans take for granted. It represents the bond between those in 
high office and those who put them there. It represents, in short, our 
freedom.
  For that freedom, throughout our history, men and women have been 
willing to stand guard, to fight if necessary, and to die on many 
fields in many places in the world.
  They have done all that to protect their homes, to shield their loved 
ones, and to preserve their Nation. Some of those brave individuals are 
memorialized in the Capitol itself in statues of bronze and marble. 
They stand among us, mute but strangely eloquent about the price of 
liberty.
  Tomorrow, amid those grand statues of heroes past, we will honor two 
of our own to whom heroism was simply duty. For those two, for Officers 
Jacob Chestnut, affectionately known as J.J., and John Gibson, this 
open Capitol, with wide-eyed kids learning the Nation's history, with 
strangers from abroad awed by its grandeur, with Americans of all 
creeds and races and religions celebrating their common faith in God, 
and in one another, this Capitol itself will be their enduring 
monument.

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