[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 93 (Monday, June 23, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1328-E1329]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                VETERANS LOSE ONE OF THEIR BEST FRIENDS

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. LANE EVANS

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, June 23, 2003

  Mr. EVANS. Mr. Speaker, on June 20 the Nation lost a dedicated public 
servant and its veterans and Armed Forces personnel worldwide a loyal 
and steadfast champion. Our colleague, former Arizona Congressman Bob 
Stump, whose legacy is a remarkable record of programs that will 
benefit active duty service men and women, National Guard and Reserve 
personnel, and veterans for generations to come, passed away after a 
lengthy illness.
  I consider it a privilege to have had the opportunity to serve in the 
House of Representatives with this gentleman from 1987 to the day of 
his departure--some 14 years, the full time for which we both served as 
members of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee. In that time, I never 
encountered a more generous, more courteous, more affable, nor more 
resolute individual in this body. I am proud to have served as Ranking 
Democrat under his very capable chairmanship of the Veterans' Affairs 
Committee and to have worked with someone who so clearly understood and 
practiced true bipartisanship.
  Bob was one of those all-too-rare individuals in elected office--an 
unassuming, behind-the-scenes workhorse who eschewed self-promotion and 
who knew his way and how to get there. It didn't take long for one to 
understand that Bob's kindly manner sometimes belied the firm hand he 
kept on the helm of leadership in veterans' affairs and armed services, 
and in the cause of his constituents.
  Those who have served in uniform, and those still serving, likely 
will never know the full measure of what this good man gave them, but 
they will feel it every day in a broad range of benefits and services 
that bear his mark. His near half-century of contributions to his 
country, beginning as a combat medic in the Pacific Theater of World 
War II, through service in both houses of the Arizona legislature, 26 
years in the U.S. House of Representatives and chairmanship of two 
committees, will forever be held in the same high regard as the man we 
came to know and appreciate.

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