[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 64 (Thursday, May 1, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5646-S5647]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           HONORING BOB PROFT

 Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, I ask that the following two 
tributes honoring the life of the late Bob Proft--a proud Minnesotan, 
respected author, and brave World War II veteran--be printed in the 
Record.
  The tributes follow.

                   [From the Star Tribune, Jan. 1996]

                          A Tribute to Heroes

                            (By Chuck Haga)

       Fifty years ago, Congress awarded a Medal of Honor to Jimmy 
     LaBelle, a 19-year-old Marine from Columbia Heights and one 
     of Bob Proft's best friends.
       Proft, a B-17 radio operator during the war, always 
     wondered what his buddy had done to receive the country's 
     highest military decoration, but he could find no lists, no 
     compilation of citations.
       So Proft published a book. Working out of his sign-
     painter's garage in Columbia Heights, he researched the 
     history of the medal, compiled lists of the recipients and 
     their citations--from the Civil War through Vietnam--and in 
     1980 assembled an encyclopedic document of more than 1,100 
     pages. With co-publisher Mitch DeMars of Columbia Heights, he 
     brought out an updated edition last year.
       Now anybody can look up Jimmy LaBelle's name and find out 
     just what he did before he died on March 8, 1945, on Iwo 
     Jima.
       ``I don't think there's anything else I've ever done that's 
     given me more satisfaction,'' Proft said.
       He is a fit man of 70, earnest in his cause but self-
     effacing when talking about his own military service. ``I 
     didn't do anything heroic whatsoever,'' he said.
       But heroes matter to him.
       ``It bothers me that you can talk to young people and they 
     don't even know what the Medal of Honor is,'' he said. ``They 
     know John Wayne. They know `Rambo.' Real heroes are 
     forgotten.''
       LaBelle was a soft-spoken, unassuming teenager, ``Just one 
     of the guys growing up in the Heights,'' Proft said. During 
     high school, he worked at a hamburger joint called Virg's on 
     Central Ave. He boxed in intramurals.
       About 15 years after the war, Proft was painting a sign 
     near Virg's. As he passed the hamburger joint, he thought 
     about LaBelle and his Medal of Honor.
       ``It struck me that I didn't know anything about what he 
     had done,'' he said.
       He went to his local library, then to the Minneapolis 
     Public Library. He wrote to government and military sources. 
     A friend helped with the search, but they came up empty-
     handed.
       In the late 1960s, the U.S. Government Printing Office 
     compiled lists of recipients with their citations, he said, 
     but that material was distributed only to federal depository 
     libraries and couldn't be checked out.
       Proft thought there should be something that could go in 
     school libraries, something that young hamburger-flippers 
     could stumble across.
       ``You can't sit and read this book like a novel,'' he said. 
     ``The citations would start blending together. But if you 
     pick out a few citations at a time, they can really grip 
     you.''
       The honor roll lists 47 Minnesotans, including Dale 
     Wayrynen of McGregor, who received the medal posthumously for 
     gallantry in Vietnam. Ten of the Minnesotans were natives of 
     other countries: Germany, Austria, Norway, England, Ireland 
     and Canada.
       Proft's favorite is the citation for Nathanial Gwynne, who 
     was 15 and trying to talk his way into the 13th Ohio Cavalry 
     on July 30, 1864, at Petersburg, Va. When the unit charged a 
     Confederate position, Gwynne rode along.
       The Yankees were forced to retreat, leaving their flag and 
     battle standards. Young Gwynne charged back along, gathered 
     up the colors and--despite having an arm almost shot off--
     brought them back.
       ``Somebody said, `That young man should get the Medal of 
     Honor,' '' Proft said. ``Somebody else said, `Yes, but we'd 
     better get him mustered first.' ''
       Since the medal was first presented in 1863, 3,420 have 
     been awarded. Eighteen people received two medals.
       An award requires at least two witnesses, and the action 
     must involve ``gallantry beyond the call of duty'' and the 
     risk of death.
       In 1916, a congressional panel reviewed records of medals 
     awarded to that point and rescinded 910, Proft said, because 
     they didn't meet those standards.
       Proft's book includes the citation for Alvin York, of 
     course, the conscientious objector from Tennessee who became 
     a World War I hero. Gary Cooper portrayed him in the film 
     ``Sgt. York.''
       And there are the stories of two living Minnesotans who 
     received the Medal of Honor: Don Rudolph of Bovey, for 
     actions in the Philippines during World II, and Mike 
     Colalillo of Duluth, for actions against German forces near 
     the end of the war in Europe.
       Proft's labor was a good thing, said Rudolph, 74. ``It gets 
     it into the schools and the city libraries.''
       The Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Grand Rapids, Minn., 
     bought 12 of the books for local schools and libraries, he 
     said.
       Rudolph has had his own copy of the book signed by about 
     200 recipients of the medal. Today, only 184 recipients are 
     living.
       ``I've read the citations of everybody in the book,'' he 
     said.
       His own citation tells of his actions Feb. 5, when his 
     platoon had been pinned down at Munoz, on Luzon: ``While 
     administering first aid on the battlefield, he observed enemy 
     fire issuing from a nearby culvert. Crawling to the culvert 
     with rifle and grenades, he killed

[[Page S5647]]

     three of the enemy concealed there. He then worked his way 
     across open terrain toward a line of enemy pillboxes. . . .''
       He used grenades, a pick and his rifle to put seven 
     pillboxes out of commission. ``Later, when his platoon was 
     attacked by an enemy tank, he advanced under covering fire, 
     climbed to the top of the tank and dropped a white 
     phosphorous grenade through the turret, destroying the 
     crew.''
       Rudolph said he made it through all that without a scratch.
       ``I've said many times that I really don't know why I did 
     it or why I got the medal,'' he said. ``But I knew I had to 
     do it. Otherwise we were going to lose more men.''
       It was about a month later that LaBelle died on Iwo Jima.
       He was a private in the 5th Marine Division. On the night 
     of March 8, as Japanese forces tried to break through 
     American lines, a grenade landed in the foxhole that LaBelle 
     shared with two other Marines.
       He shouted a warning, then fell on the grenade, absorbing 
     most if its impact with his body.
       ``His dauntless courage, cool decision and valiant spirit 
     of self-sacrifice in the face of certain death reflect the 
     highest credit on Pfc. LaBelle,'' his posthumous citation 
     reads.
       Medals of Honor awarded in major conflicts: Civil War 
     1,520; Indian campaigns (1861-1898) 428; Spanish-American War 
     109; World War I 124; World War II 433; Korean Conflict 131; 
     Vietnam 239. Source: United States of America's Congressional 
     Medal of Honor Recipients.
                                  ____


                 [From the Star Tribune, Apr. 13, 2003]

                          Remembering a Writer

                            (By Lou Gelfand)

       Often he offered a touch of whimsy or a sweet bow to 
     tradition, rarely a cheap shot or a critical word.
       Those elements characterized the many hundreds of letters 
     submitted to the Star Tribune editorial page over the years 
     by Bob Proft, a retired Columbia Heights business owner.
       His short missives filled with expressive words were an 
     antidote to the stream of letters to the editor exhorting the 
     citizenry to rise in anger and slay the dragon of the day.
       That he knew only one letter every 30 days could qualify 
     for publication didn't faze him.
       His profundity could come in 14 words or less, as when 
     Americans began packing their bags for Iraq: ``Many things 
     change from war to war, but never this: The goodbye kiss.''
       His change of pace was delightful: ``The media exclaimed 
     recently that Princess Diana has been dead four years. That 
     means Mother Teresa has too. Ah, priorities.''
       That is not to say Proft had no passion.
       ``We cannot abide a government of the people, by the 
     lobbyists, for the privileged and remain a bona-fide 
     democracy. If this government of We the People is not, in 
     fact and spirit, of us and by us and for us, we are operating 
     with half-truths at best. And we are mocked by crafty 
     hypocrites every time we are unctuously assured that we 
     control this carefully designed system. In whatever manner 
     and to whatever degree our representation is tainted, that is 
     the manner and degree our government is a counterfeit of what 
     our founding fathers created.''
       He lost his fettle for sports, but not for columnist 
     Patrick Reusse.
       ``Older now, I seldom read the sports pages. However, 
     thumbing through, I can't pass up Pat Reusse. For all the 
     proper reasons I'm attracted to that face. It just came to me 
     he reminds me of New York's Jimmy Breslin. With that face 
     Reusse had to be a sportswriter or some guy living under the 
     Third Avenue bridge. Now don't get me wrong, I still don't 
     know if I should like this guy. But my, my, how he can write! 
     I'll bet my dentures Reusse is a closet poet. Robert Browning 
     or Robert Service type, I don't know.''
       His love for holiday and tradition, spring and freedom and, 
     above all, for family is expressed in these letters some 
     readers may have saved to savor:
       ``Contracted Christmas greeting: Ho!''
       ``Sure signs autumn cometh: falling leaves, long sleeves.''
       ``Our nation is free. For that reason we own everything we 
     have to those we remember this day.''
       ``Any force at any time in any country that can keep a 
     loving father from a loving son for one second is a force of 
     evil. A mob at any time in any country may have the power to 
     prevent a loving father from reaching his loving son but it 
     will never have the right.''
       His Veterans Day letter made him dear to the editor:
       ``While it is fitting and proper that we enjoy the fruits 
     of our power and plenty, we must not forget those who destiny 
     decreed should pay that price. Today is Veterans Day, set 
     aside to commemorate that unique fraternity. Please, you 
     needn't genuflect. Just give a knowing nod, and maybe a 
     smile.''
       Proft enlisted in World War II and was training to fly 
     bombers when peace came.
       His love for country was funneled into publishing a 1,248-
     page book listing Medal of Honor Recipients and their 
     official citations. Humility dictated that his initials, not 
     his name, be on the cover.
       The final letter from Proft, 78, arrived last week. He died 
     at home early Thursday morning after a short illness.

                          ____________________