[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 163 (Tuesday, November 11, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14380-S14381]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HONORING OUR VETERANS
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, today, our forces for freedom encircle the
globe. Our military men and women will observe Veterans Day in almost
all of the world's time zones. In the skies, on the ground, and under
the water, they will pause to remember.
In a few moments, we, too, will pause to remember.
As Senators, we have had the opportunity to work alongside so many
who served our Nation so ably, and so nobly, during our country's
struggles on behalf of freedom--heroes such as Strom Thurmond and Bob
Dole, heroes such as John McCain and Bob Kerrey, heroes such as Max
Cleland and Chuck Hagel, heroes such as Dan Inouye. We have seen how
they and others have sacrificed and suffered for a cause greater than
themselves. Their nobility and grace, in war and in peace, stand as
examples to all in our new century and in the new conflict we fight
today.
We work in an institution that values unlimited speech--sometimes
speech over everything else. But in my years of working alongside these
heroes, I have discovered a lesson that runs true for all of them. To
me it has been in these silences, the times they have not joined in
with the majority of their colleagues, that they have demonstrated
their strength.
Our Nation is a cacophony of noise, a symphony of sound, from that
factory floor to the market floor, from Main Street to Wall Street. It
is the so-called roar of democracy that makes us unique as a nation and
as a country. But this morning we are called to silence. Why?
In our Nation's battles throughout her last two centuries, many have
paid the ultimate sacrifice for freedom and liberty. This moment of
silence we will shortly observe is the silence of those voices stilled
forever, of sons and daughters no longer returning home, of husbands
and wives no longer there for each other, of mothers and fathers no
longer there for their children day and night.
In the pain of these sacrifices, our warriors have built our country
and saved our world. They have stood as freedom's sentinel and as
liberty's shield. They have fought the fights to which history has
called us and won the victories that faith has dared us.
Our Nation is the beacon of liberty for so many people around the
world, and it is the valor and dedication of the many heroes, sung and
unsung, throughout the Nation's past 200 years--those who sleep
forevermore--who have made it so. We honor them today not with noise
but with silence.
As the hour of 11 a.m. approaches, I ask that we do observe this
moment of silence.
I come from the great State of Tennessee. We have our share of
hallowed war dead. We have our share of heroes, including perhaps one
of the most famous Medal of Honor winners, Sergeant York. In a chain of
events still astonishing today, he led a small squad of just 7 men in
charging a machine gun nest mercilessly attacking his position,
ultimately capturing 132 prisoners. An observer termed what he did ``a
call to courage.''
I encourage every American today to also take a moment of silence and
look for those who have answered that call to courage. All throughout
our country, every day our veterans merit our support, our respect, our
thanks for advancing the cause of liberty here at home and indeed
around the world. They took what was granted to them by their fathers
and, with their service and with their labors, they passed it on to
their children, bringing America still free into a new century.
We pass legislation on their behalf to express the thanks--our
thanks--of this grateful Nation. Today's silence is for them as well.
Now our country fights a new enemy, faceless and hateful. It fights
in new ways, bringing new terrors and threats and intimidations to our
fellow Americans. That is the final lesson our moment of silence
teaches us this morning.
Together let's remember the strength of silence and, as we resume our
labors here today, just as our Armed Forces work today around the
world, let us move ahead with a little less noise and a little more
fortitude.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The distinguished minority leader.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, each year, America honors its veterans on
this day with solemn pride.
But this year, Veterans Day arrives with uncommon poignancy. As we
show our gratitude to our veterans here at home, a new generation of
soldiers is thousands of miles from their loved ones, facing danger on
our behalf.
There is an immediacy to this year's Veterans Day. The risks our
soldiers are facing today have not yet been softened by memory. Without
the filter of history, we see clearly the dangers they face every day
when we learn of yet another attack on American soldiers, yet another
death, yet another family that must go on without a loved one. At the
same time, we see clearly the good that American service men and women
can perform when we witness the hopeful faces of Iraqis eager for a
better, more peaceful life.
Within the service of today's soldiers, we may see a clear reflection
of the service of our veterans. Just as our soldiers today, our
veterans, too, left families behind. They, too, woke up to uncertain
dangers. They, too, saw friends and comrades injured or killed. Yet,
knowing both their risks and their obligations, they, too, performed
their duty each day.
Forty years ago, President Kennedy noted that no nation ``in the
history of the world has buried its soldiers farther from its native
soil than we Americans--or closer to the towns in which they grew up.''
At our proudest moments, the American people have sent our sons and
daughters across the globe to fight for
[[Page S14381]]
freedom. And once the fight was done, we have welcomed them home with
honor and gratitude.
Today, too, the honor of defending those who cannot defend themselves
is carried forward by young American soldiers. And their families and
friends wait anxiously for their safe return.
South Dakota is proud of the role its sons and daughters have played
in Operation Iraqi Freedom. At the start of the war, it was a B-1
bomber crew from Ellsworth Air Force Base's 28th Bomb Wing that hit
that bunker in Baghdad where it was thought the Iraqi leadership might
have been hiding. All four members of the crew were awarded the
Distinguished Flying Cross.
Staff Sergeant Randy Meyer, a Marine from Big Stone City, was part of
a unit that discovered 22 American prisoners of war along a highway
near Baghdad.
Sergeant Meyer noticed that Specialist Shoshanna Johnson was too hurt
to walk--she had been shot in both ankles--so he picked her up and
carried her to safety.
And South Dakota's National Guard and Reserve units have been on the
front lines, both during the active fighting and today as we work to
stabilize Iraq and rebuild the nation of Iraq.
Their service on this day is doubled. Because in addition to
advancing democracy and security, their brave acts make us still more
aware of, and still more grateful for, the brave acts of our veterans.
But alongside our pride, Veterans Day comes with a challenge. Each
year we should ask ourselves, have we done enough to honor the
sacrifices of our soldiers and veterans?
This year, if we are honest with ourselves, the answer must be no.
Mr. President, in keeping with our agreement to stop for a moment of
silence at 11 o'clock, I will do so and return to my remarks as soon as
the moment of silence has been completed.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will observe a moment of silence.
(Moment of Silence.)
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I am hard pressed to recall a time when
the gap between the demands we place on our soldiers and the thanks we
offer them once they return home has been wider. It is bitterly ironic
that on this Veterans Day, while soldiers are facing danger far from
home, the gap is still growing.
Today, more than 500,000 American soldiers are stationed in 137
different countries around the world. More than 300,000 are engaged in
active combat or peacekeeping missions in seven different countries,
including more than 140,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan.
More than 400 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq and
Afghanistan. More than 2,400 have been wounded.
Meanwhile, our military is stretched so thin we cannot tell many of
our soldiers or their families when they might be coming home. And
despite the added strain and the ever more complicated mission, we are
failing to provide for our soldiers, our veterans, and their families.
Veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom will join 250,000 veterans who
must wait 6 months just to see a V.A. hospital doctor.
This wait will be lengthened by the administration's closing of seven
Veterans Hospitals and a budget that under-funds veterans health by
$1.8 billion.
In addition, the administration has opposed expanding health care
benefits to Guard Members and Reservists and their families. It
proposed cutting the pay to troops facing imminent danger. Schools for
the children of military families are being threatened with cuts. And
the Defense Department is closing 19 commissaries and considering
whether to close 19 more.
In a recent article in ``The Army Times,'' a representative from the
National Military Family Association was quoted asking a question
familiar to many of us today. ``How can leadership be talking about
cutting back on quality-of-life benefits right now when the force and
everyone supporting the force is at such a high stress level?''
One colonel quoted in the article expressed it more simply:
``Betrayal,'' he said to the reporter. ``Write that down and put it in
your report.''
In signing the GI Bill of Rights in 1944, President Roosevelt noted
that ``the members of the Armed Forces have been compelled to make
greater . . . sacrifice than the rest of us, and they are entitled to
definite action to help take care of their special problems.''
Each year, we are in danger of falling further behind in our
obligation to our veterans. Recently, ``definite action'' has given way
to little more than indefinite praise.
Veterans deserve better.
Some within this administration seem to believe that our
responsibility to our soldiers ends when they come home. We disagree.
These men and women risked their lives to defend our own. They stood up
for us; now we must stand up for them, not with words but with deeds.
Mr. President, not long ago, a teacher from a small town in the Black
Hills of South Dakota gave her students an assignment. She asked them
to tell the stories of each of the 2,200 South Dakotans who gave their
lives in the fight for democracy during World War II.
As word spread of the children's work, the teacher was asked to bring
the program to the entire State.
In doing their research, South Dakota's children discovered some
amazing things. They found that Native American--treated within their
own country as second-class citizens--rushed to enlist in record
numbers. They found young men who had failed their physicals, but used
a cousin's or a sibling's results to sneak into the service. They found
youngest sons--and only sons--who could easily have gotten deferments,
but instead demanded to serve.
They also found official military records that listed the wrong home
county for an extraordinary number of the South Dakotans killed in the
war. At first, the students were puzzled. After a while, though, they
discovered the reason: So many counties had overfilled their enrollment
caps, that young men would claim to be from another county, just to be
allowed to serve their Nation.
All told, 68,000 South Dakotans enrolled in the Armed Services in
WWII. My father was one of them. Two thousand two hundred of them never
came home--a greater percentage of World War II deaths than any other
State.
Those who did make it home passed that same sense of loyalty and duty
onto their sons and daughters. During the Vietnam war, 78 percent of
South Dakota's eligible young men chose to serve.
That was, by far, the highest percentage in the Nation. I was one of
them. I was lucky. Two hundred South Dakotans who went to Vietnam
didn't make it back.
This year, too, South Dakotans have proven eager to serve. South
Dakota has one of the highest proportions of our citizens serving in
active duty in Iraq of any State in the country.
South Dakota knows the true meaning of patriotism. We have sent out
sons and daughters off to war, welcomed those who returned, and buried
those that did not.
We volunteer without boast or complaint. The rewards of citizenship
are great, therefore, the demands are great.
Having sent so many young people off to war, South Dakotans feel the
tight bond that develops between soldiers and the communities they
defend. And we know that the debt we owe to veterans cannot be repaid
on this day alone.
We enjoy our freedoms every day, and every day we must remember those
by whose courage they were purchased.
We must express our gratitude in both word and deed and commit
ourselves to their care, as they committed themselves to our
protection.
Today, we witness the courage of our soldiers serving throughout the
world and remember the courage of veterans throughout our history.
Never once did they fall short of our expectations of them. Today, we
must recommit ourselves to making sure we do not fall short of their
expectations of us.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my remarks be taken from
my leader time, not from the morning business time allocated for this
tribute this morning.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________