[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 93 (Thursday, July 11, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1239]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        COMMENDING JASON HIBNER

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                           HON. TONY P. HALL

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 11, 2002

  Mr. HALL of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, each year the Veterans of Foreign Wars 
and its Ladies Auxiliary conduct a national audio essay contest 
entitled the Voice of Democracy. 85,000 secondary school students 
participated this year on the theme, Reaching Out to America's Future. 
Jason Hibner, a young man from my congressional district, took second 
place with his entry, and was awarded the $16,000 Charles Kuralt 
Memorial Scholarship. Jason has just completed his junior year at 
Vandalia-Butler High School. I am pleased to insert his remarks into 
the Congressional Record.

          2001-2002 VFW Voice of Democracy Scholarship Contest


                  ``Reaching Out to America's Future''

       The train ride must have been nearly unbearable. The biting 
     cold, so unlike the warmth of the Hawaiian harbor, likely did 
     nothing to dull the pain of his recent losses as the iron 
     machine chugged along the parallel tracks. The telegram 
     giving word of his father's death had come only a week prior, 
     it would be difficult to comfort his sister and mother with 
     the tragedy of his brother's death also fresh in their minds. 
     The date was December 7, 1941. The title, ``a date that shall 
     live in infamy'' would come later as would the declaration of 
     war. But for my great uncle Arthur the day would mark the 
     grimmest day of his life. He should have been there, at Pearl 
     Harbor, as all his friends and fellow crewmen were when the 
     Zeroes began dropping their deadly cargo. Such cruel irony, 
     only his personal tragedies had prevented the loss of his own 
     life. The thoughts of friends dying to the West and his 
     family grieving to the East must have made the long ride 
     nearly unbearable.
       In December of '41, the world changed for every American 
     young and old. The threat to our liberty could not be 
     questioned; it could only be answered with such extra 
     ordinary force and purpose. However, the war was won, not by 
     the adults who earlier questioned the next generation's 
     patriotism, but by the young men and women who were pulled 
     from their homes and thrown into battle for all those who 
     would come after. Today we call them ``The Greatest 
     Generation,'' once they were called the future of America.
       Within my own short lifetime, I can remember another period 
     when everyone felt it was time to create some more patriotism 
     and concern for our nation. That time was roughly from the 
     moments during my childhood as coherent thoughts began to 
     fill my mind to a date that shall always occupy a front 
     position in my memory: September 11, 2001. Now, no one acts 
     concerned about the need to teach the cost of freedom. We 
     just want to go back to that time, before America once again 
     lost her innocence as children watched from their school room 
     desks both the toppling of the World Trade Center Towers and 
     the disappearance of hope from their teachers' faces.
       The young people of America's future will not have the 
     luxury of being gently educated by the wiser members who have 
     experienced Vietnam and Desert Storm. Instead, they have been 
     ripped from their shelter of indifference into the ultimate 
     struggle of good versus evil, a united nation against a 
     radical terror network. The leaders of America have been 
     handed a burden of monstrous proportions for the terrorists' 
     instrument of evil has also become an image demanding 
     retaliation for the American people. Today, the concern of 
     reaching out to America's future has become a universal 
     thread, weaving together all the citizens of this great 
     nation.
       America's future is unclear. But it has always been so from 
     first cries of revolution, to the separation of the Union, to 
     the grinding of war on Normandy Beach. Our future citizens of 
     this country may live with daily threats of violence and the 
     fearful anxiety of what will come next. But as Benjamin 
     Franklin once declared, ``They that can give up essential 
     liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither 
     liberty nor safety * * *'' The American way will continue as 
     long as there are Americans to sustain it.
       Before, I could only imagine the thoughts of my great-uncle 
     during that long ride home. Now we, America's youth, are 
     riding the same journey across the fruited plains and under 
     the spacious skies of America the Beautiful. The parallel 
     tracks of hardened metal resemble the tracks of change 
     through the history of our nation. Often there will be 
     treacherous turns and steep declines, but America always 
     levels herself and turns to the morning dawn. My generation 
     is the future of America and we will fight for liberty and 
     freedom just as all those before us.

     

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