[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 74 (Friday, May 25, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5671-S5672]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              MEMORIAL DAY

  Mr. CLELAND. Mr. President, on next Monday, May 28, and acting 
pursuant to a joint resolution actually approved by the Congress back 
in 1950, the President of the United States will issue a proclamation 
calling upon the people of the United States to observe a day of prayer 
for permanent peace in remembrance of all of those brave Americans who 
have died in our Nation's service.
  In many ways, this is part of our history and heritage, Memorial Day. 
In 1866, citizens from both the North and the South, after the Civil 
War, decided to form the first Memorial Day effort and place a flag on 
the grave sites of those brave Americans who had died in the Civil War.
  That is actually how Memorial Day got started.
  Whenever Memorial Day comes around, I am reminded of what may well 
have been the first, and is still one of the finest, memorials to 
fallen soldiers. Thousands of years ago: the Funeral Oration of the 
great Athenian leader Pericles, as recorded by the historian 
Thucydides, during the Peloponnesian War in the 5th century BC:

       For this offering of their lives made in common by them all 
     they each of them individually received that renown which 
     never grows old, and for a sepulcher, not so much that in 
     which their bones have been deposited, but that noblest of 
     shrines wherein their glory is laid up to be eternally 
     remembered upon every occasion on which deed or story shall 
     call for its commemoration. For heroes have the whole earth 
     for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the 
     column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in 
     every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve 
     it, except that of the heart.

  There are many thoughts as we approach Memorial Day weekend. In that 
spirit, I am pleased that both the House and the Senate have now passed 
legislation that will expedite a monument commemorating the sacrifice 
of those who served in World War II.
  My father served in World War II after the attack at Pearl Harbor. 
This weekend I will be visiting some of my fellow veterans, and we will 
see the premiere of the new movie ``Pearl Harbor.''
  I introduced a resolution on Tuesday calling upon all Americans to 
especially dedicate Memorial Day of 2001 to those brave American men 
and women who have given their lives in service to their country 
especially since the end of the war in Viet Nam.
  As a Vietnam veteran, I appreciate the monument in this great city, 
sometimes called ``The Wall,'' the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
  But no grand edifices or other public monuments commemorate the deeds 
of those who have died after the Vietnam war, but their service to 
their country was just as strong, their sacrifice just as great, their 
families' and communities' loss just as keen as that of their 
predecessors in the two world wars of the 20th century, Korea and Viet 
Nam.
  Honoring our fallen heroes is altogether fitting and proper, as 
President Lincoln said at Gettysburg. At this point, I thank my many 
colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, who joined me

[[Page S5672]]

in cosponsoring this resolution: Senators McCain, Levin, Hutchison, 
Miller, Biden, Jeffords, Landrieu, Bennett, Murray, Johnson, Carnahan, 
Dayton, Conrad, Kennedy, Durbin, Hatch, Sessions, Clinton, and Allen. I 
also thank the entire Senate for adopting this measure by unanimous 
consent last evening.
  I am reminded of the line from one of Wellington's troops that: ``In 
time of war, and not before, God and the soldier men adore. And in time 
of peace, with all things righted, God is forgotten and the soldier 
slighted.''
  Mr. President, I am honored to live in a country that forgets not God 
and does not slight the soldier.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from Missouri is 
recognized.

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