[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 173 (Thursday, December 13, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13140-S13141]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    HONORING SERGEANT DAN PETITHORY

  Mr. KERRY. It is my extraordinary privilege to share a few words with 
you today about Sgt. Dan Petithory. I am touched that his family asked 
me to do so, touched as a veteran who shares with Dan the bond of 
service in war, touched as a public official who has the privilege of 
expressing gratitude on behalf of everyone in our State and country 
whose lives are better for Dan's service, and touched as a citizen and 
father whose gratitude for Dan's contribution and sacrifice can never 
be adequately described.
  No one in all of time has ever been able to soften the blow of a 
young person dying. I know all too well, as does Senator Kennedy, how 
the suddenness of death can rob us of those we love and change life 
forever for those left to live it. But somehow through the tears, God 
helps us find our way.
  In the natural order of things, parents are not supposed to bury 
their children. The pain of doing so is unfathomable and today 
America's heart and the hearts of all decent, civilized people ache 
uncontrollably for Louis and Barbara, for Michael and Nicole, and for 
all the members of their family.
  But we are comforted above all by knowing this was not a loss in 
vain. This was not a waste. This was not a death that cannot be 
explained, difficult as the circumstances were. Sgt. Daniel Petithory 
died for all of us. He died believing in his country, his values, his 
brothers in his unit. He died in the extraordinary act of making it 
possible for others to live by the values he loved so deeply, so much 
more even than he loved his own life.
  And we will never forget: Dan was a warrior on our behalf. Twice he 
went to war so we can live our lives in security and freedom. When the 
terrorists brought the frontlines here to America, Sergeant Petithory 
took the battle back to them in Afghanistan, just as he had taken it to 
Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War a decade ago. That time, he came home 
safely to America, to a New England community built on the values for 
which he'd fought so courageously, home to Cheshire and the love of his 
family which all the days of his youth had flown the American flag from 
their front porch. Now he is returned to us, resting under that flag to 
which he has added an indelible new strand of duty and honor. He gave 
his life to defend the values and security of our Nation and in doing 
so he joined the special legion of patriots who define the United 
States of America.
  For his ultimate sacrifice in the performance of duty, Sgt. Petithory 
is to be awarded the Silver Star and the Purple Heart, badges of 
distinction from a grateful Nation. Following his courageous example, 
the duty is now left to us to spare no sacrifice to finish the mission 
for which Dan earned our eternal respect, gratitude, and awe.
  I didn't know Dan personally. Nor did many who mourn him in 
Massachusetts and across the country. But now we know him as the 
neighbor next door; we know him as the kid who always wanted to be a 
soldier since he

[[Page S13141]]

was 4 years old playing with G.I. Joes in his family's backyard; the 
``all American,'' athletic and funny, who became what he always wanted 
to be, the Army's best and America's best too. We know him as the boy 
at school who Alison Kachel remembers exalting in games of hide and 
seek, as she said, ``hiding like there was no tomorrow.'' While other 
kids hid behind corners and in the bottom of bushes, Dan hid in the 
tree tops, on the school roof, atop neighborhood homes. He was never 
discovered until the game was over, out of sight until his friends, 
exasperated, would look up and see him peering out behind a chimney, 
and declare him the winner, if they could find him even then.
  Alison, today a police officer serving her hometown, told me simply: 
``we've lost one of our elite.'' And indeed we should take a moment to 
honor what it really meant for Dan to have been a member of the Special 
Forces.
  His unit commander, Captain Jason Amerine, who was wounded at the 
same time, said we should remember not how Dan and his brothers in arms 
died, but `what they did beforehand.' What an extraordinary story of 
courage, initiative, and resolve: a member of an 11 man team, the elite 
of the American fighting forces, dropped into a valley deep inside 
enemy territory in Central Afghanistan, a part of the world they said 
looked like the ``back side of the moon.'' In the darkness in those 
initial tense moments they came face to face with Hamid Karzai, then 
the leader of a committed band of freedom fighters taking on the 
Taliban, and thanks to Dan and his fellow soldiers now about to become 
the leader of a free Afghanistan. Together they became one fighting 
force with a common mission. For 6 weeks the men in this small band of 
brothers depended on each other for life and death, calling in 
airstrikes, repelling Taliban counterattacks, organizing the 
opposition, carrying on their shoulders the hopes of all who were 
outraged by the acts of September 11. And in that far off place where 
danger was everywhere, Dan excelled on behalf of his Nation, proving, 
as his fellow soldiers said of him, that he was among the best America 
had to offer. On several occasions Dan directed the air attacks that 
turned the tide of battles. Captain Amerine said of him: ``It's an art. 
And the guy I had was the best I've ever seen.''
  So today, we are all privileged to know Dan and we love him for his 
idealistic, wholehearted commitment to a cause bigger than any of us, 
for his enduring love of country and his enormous sacrifice for 
freedom. He has given a great gift to us all, the gift of a life worth 
emulating, the gift of his life for our's.
  While the Petithorys' hearts will forever be heavier with the loss of 
their beloved son and brother, we pray that their pain is lightened to 
some measure by the knowledge that the whole country shares it, and 
that our whole country reaches out with an embrace of gratitude. We 
pray that their burden will also be lifted in part by the knowledge 
that the justice for which Dan sacrificed so much, is being delivered 
in Afghanistan, delivered for the brothers and sisters, husbands and 
wives, the children, of every American lost in New York, Pennsylvania, 
and the Pentagon. Louis and Barbara, that justice will be delivered for 
one more man, your son, Sergeant Daniel Petithory.
  President Harry Truman, himself a veteran tested by war, committed to 
peace, 50 years ago honored the Greatest Generation and said of 
America: ``We are not a warlike Nation. We do not go to war for gain or 
for territory; we go to war for principles, and we produce young men 
like these.''
  Once again, our peaceful Nation is at war. We did not seek this war, 
but we will win it for a principle that is timeless and values which 
shall forever define the greatness of yet another generation of citizen 
soldiers. And even in our grief, we can say with pride, and conviction, 
this is America, the Nation we love because it produces and keeps faith 
with men like Dan Petithory. God bless you Dan, and God Bless the 
United States of America.

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