[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 137 (Monday, October 5, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11498-S11499]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             TRIBUTE TO COMMANDER LILIA L. RAMIREZ, US NAVY

 Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I welcome this opportunity to pay 
tribute to Commander Lilia L. Ramirez, U.S. Navy, who is retiring after 
eighteen

[[Page S11499]]

years of distinguished service to this nation. She stands out as a 
pioneer, a leader and an outstanding role model for young people in 
uniform.
  Lilia's United States Navy career is testament to a true American 
success story. She was born in Bogota, Colombia, and emigrated to the 
U.S. when she was just five years old. Her parents, Alvaro and Ana 
Ramirez, were fleeing violence in the Colombian countryside in the 
early 1960's and sought a new life of security and promise for their 
children in America. Al and Ana settled in Bayshore, New York, and 
starting with little more than a confident spirit, went on to raise 
five extraordinary citizens through hard work, a determination to 
succeed, and a deep commitment to family.
  Lilia is the eldest of the five children. She spoke only Spanish when 
she arrived in New York as a five-year-old. But Lilia excelled 
throughout her public education career, graduating with distinction 
from Brentwood High School and accepting an appointment to the U.S. 
Naval Academy as a member of the class of 1981, only the second class 
to have admitted women at Annapolis.
  As a brand new Ensign, Lilia set sail for the Naval Communications 
Area Master Station Western Pacific in Guam, the first of three 
overseas assignments. While in Guam, Lilia deployed to the Indian Ocean 
aboard the submarine tender USS PROTEUS. One of just a handful of women 
aboard PROTEUS, she crossed the Equator with the ship and was proudly 
and courageously initiated as a Trusty Shellback in that time-honored 
sea faring ceremony.
  Assignments in Europe followed, first in England as a Navy-Air Force 
Liaison Officer at RAF Mildenhall, where one evening on liberty she and 
two other Annapolis classmates saved the life of an elderly Briton they 
had come upon who had collapsed from a heart attack. Next she served at 
the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, as the Officer-in-
Charge of the Navy-Marine Corps Element in the headquarters' manpower 
and personnel directorate. While in Stuttgart, Lilia provided crucial 
after-action reporting and personnel support in the wake of a terrorist 
murder of our Naval Attache in Greece and the U.S. Marine Barracks 
bombing in Beirut.
  After five years overseas, Lilia returned to the Washington, DC area 
to serve in several assignments, including the Navy Telecommunications 
Center at Crystal City, at the time the Navy's largest message center; 
the Navy's Bureau of Personnel, where she was personally involved in 
assigning a record number of women officers to pursue advanced 
technical degrees at the Naval Postgraduate School; and the Joint 
Staff's Command, Control and Communications Systems Directorate. On the 
Joint Staff, she coordinated the installation of command and control 
systems in the field offices of Customs, DEA and the North American Air 
Defense Command as part of our national anti-drug policy.
  In 1990 Lilia was assigned as Officer-in-Charge of the Personnel 
Support Detachment at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, in the state of 
Washington. In this tour she was responsible for the pay, travel and 
career advancement matters of 8,000 service members and their families. 
Lilia returned to the Washington, DC area again in 1992 where she 
served as base commander of Naval Communications Unit Cheltenham, a 
230-acre facility in rural Maryland. At Cheltenham she was responsible 
for 300 personnel, 19 tenant commands, and environmentally protected 
wetlands at her base, where she also played host to the local Boys 
Scouts Troop.
  In 1994 Lilia began a tour in the Secretary of the Navy's Office of 
Legislative Affairs. Lilia was responsible for representing command, 
control, communications and tactical intelligence programs to the 
defense and intelligence committees of both the House and Senate. In 
addition to numerous informative visits to Naval communications and 
intelligence facilities throughout the U.S., Europe and Japan, Lilia 
also escorted congressional delegations to the refugee camps at 
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and to witness national elections in Nicaragua. 
In 1997 she was part of a team from the U.S. Naval Academy sent to Peru 
to advise the Peruvian Navy on integrating women into their naval 
academy.
  Lilia was also a student at the Inter-American Defense College, where 
she again blazed a trail as the first U.S. Navy woman to attend that 
institution. She was an impressive ambassador of the U.S. Navy to her 
Latin American counterparts, where she was able to combine her native 
Spanish fluency and breadth of experience in national security affairs 
to forge lasting relationships with key civilian and military leaders 
of Latin America. She left them with enduring, positive impressions of 
women as military professionals.
  Lilia's personal decorations include the Defense Meritorious Service 
Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Joint Service Commendation 
Medal, and the Navy Commendation Medal (three awards).
  The Nation owes a debt of gratitude to Lilia Ramirez, whose example 
will inspire women and Hispanics to seek public service and whose work 
will continue to have a lasting impact on our armed forces for years to 
come. While we will miss her distinguished career in uniform, we will 
no doubt continue to enjoy her commitment to community and nation. I 
wish to recognize her entire family, including father Alvaro, mother 
Ana (whom we lost just this year to cancer), brothers Michael and 
Henry, and sisters Angela and Ana Tulita, all great American success 
stories in their own right. Best wishes to Lilia, husband Randall 
Lovdahl (Commander, U.S. Navy), and children Bianca and Beau as they 
mark this special milestone.

                          ____________________