[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 162 (Tuesday, November 16, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2390]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


      IN HONOR OF WORLD WAR II VETERAN, COAST GUARD CAPT. EARL FOX

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, November 16, 1999

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I had the honor of attending Veterans Day 
ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery on November 11 and was 
present to hear President Clinton single out a World War II veteran who 
is the last veteran of that war to still be on active duty.
  He is 80-year-old Capt. Earl Fox, a Coast Guard doctor, who spent his 
last Veterans Day in uniform last week. He is retiring from active duty 
this week. I want to submit an article from the November 11, 1999, 
Washington Post, which is a tribute to Capt. Fox and his years of 
dedicated service to his nation. He is a patriot and hero and we salute 
him.

               [From the Washington Post, Nov. 11, 1999]

   World War II Veteran Soldiers On, Alone--Active-Duty Doctor; 80, 
                         Salutes His Generation

                           (By Roberto Suro)

       Two weeks ago, Capt. Earl R. Fox learned that he is the 
     last World War II veteran still on active duty in the U.S. 
     armed forces. Since then he has dwelled in memories, 
     wondering whether he will be worthy of the fallen when he 
     walks among Arlington's serried tombstones this afternoon.
       ``I have felt a weight on me to expend every effort to make 
     it honorable for them,'' said the 80-year-old Coast Guard 
     physician.
       Fox will have breakfast at the White House today and then 
     speak at a wreath-laying ceremony at the national cemetery. 
     This will be his final Veterans Day in uniform--he is 
     retiring next week--and he describes himself as ``the last 
     direct physical link'' between today's military and the 
     warriors of Midway, Normandy and Iwo Jima.
       ``One generation forms the backbone for the next to build 
     on,'' says the text he has prepared for the commemoration. 
     ``As my generation fades into the mist of collective memory 
     called tradition, you will continue the process for the next 
     generation of your sons and daughters. In this way, those who 
     have given the last full measure of devotion will live 
     forever . . .''
       As the Virginia native rehearsed his brief speech for a 
     visitor to his office at Coast Guard headquarters yesterday, 
     his voice cracked. He stopped in mid-sentence, reached for a 
     handkerchief and apologized for the show of emotion.
       ``I had classmates who did not come home,'' he said. ``I 
     had shipmates who did not make it. I knew these men well. I 
     knew what they thought and what they thought about. And I am 
     filled with humility and faith in God, because I feel like I 
     am here today because of their courage and bravery.''
       After five years of service on patrol-torpedo boats and 
     submarines, Fox left the Navy in 1947 to attend medical 
     school and then to prosper as a physician in St. Petersburg, 
     Fla. In 1974, he retired at the age of 55 to enjoy his 43-
     foot yacht and life as a yacht club commodore who made a 
     practice of entertaining officers from the local Coast Guard 
     air station. He was at the club one day when an emergency 
     call came in.
       A man aboard a pleasure boat was suffering a heart attack. 
     With the Coast Guard's doctor away, Fox was asked to help. 
     Within minutes, he was being lowered from a helicopter at 
     sea.
       Fox enjoyed the experience so much that he agreed to join 
     up when the local commanding officer suggested he could get a 
     commission under a program that waived age limits for 
     physicians. He made only one demand: He wanted to go to 
     flight school. Eventually, he learned to fly helicopters as 
     well as airplanes.
       For 16 years, until 1990, Fox served as a flight surgeon at 
     Coast Guard stations up and down the East Coast, making more 
     than a dozen helicopter rescues. For the past nine years, he 
     has worked as the senior medical officer in the personnel 
     department at Coast Guard headquarters.
       Combining his Navy and Coast Guard service, Fox has now 
     spent 30 years in the military, the point at which most 
     officers must retire. But he said his decision to leave 
     uniform is driven primarily by a desire to spend more time 
     with his wife of 56 years, Reba.
       It might be mere serendipity that this genial octogenarian 
     is the last of 16 million World War II veterans to don his 
     ribbons and decorations every working day. But Fox seems the 
     perfect representative of a generation that, in his words, 
     ``experienced both great times and times of desperation.''
       Thinking back to nighttime battles fought in tropical 
     waters, Fox said, ``when things get tough you need more to 
     fall back on than yourself and the present.'' He had the 
     heritage of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, 
     all military officers. But he also had shipmates. ``We were 
     bound together by common purpose,'' he recalled. ``The trust 
     we had in each other made us strong.''
       Fox has a small photograph, now fading to sepia, that shows 
     10 sailors in jaunty poses at the bow of a PT boat, one of 
     the mahogany-hulled speedsters dispatched on hit-and-run 
     missions against enemy fleets. Seated on stools before them 
     are two officers. It's the summer of 1943 and Fox is already 
     a decorated combat veteran and boat commander at the age of 
     23. To his right sits an even younger man Al Haywood, just 
     out of Yale and assigned as the boat's executive officer.
       A few weeks after the picture was taken, they were on 
     patrol off the coast of New Guinea when a single Japanese 
     airplane appeared out of nowhere. It strafed the boat. A 
     sailor fell wounded. Haywood rushed to his side. As the 
     fighter wheeled and dove for another run at the boat, Haywood 
     threw himself over the injured man.
       The airplane's gunfire ``stitched him from head to toe,'' 
     recalled Fox, who buried Haywood at sea. The wounded crewman 
     survived.
       ``Remembering people like Haywood and the many, many others 
     like him is important,'' said Fox, ``because those memories 
     of honor and sacrifice are the fabric our country is made 
     of.''

     

                          ____________________