[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 80 (Wednesday, June 9, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6669-S6670]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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           JUDGE RICHARD MILLS DELIVERS MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS

 Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, one of the most articulate and 
literate members of our Federal judiciary, U.S. District Judge Richard 
Mills, recently delivered an extraordinary Memorial Day address in my 
hometown of Springfield IL. I share it with my colleagues because I 
believe it is not only insightful but because it comes from a person 
uniquely suited to speak to the historical impact of World War II.
  Judge Mills is a major general in the Illinois State Militia and a 
retired colonel in the U.S. Army. He served for 14 months in Korea with 
the 3rd Infantry Division and headed counterintelligence for the 65th 
Infantry Regiment and the Greek and Belgian Battalions attached to the 
3rd Division. Among his decoration are the Bronze Star, Meritorious 
Service Medal, Joint Service Commendation Medal, Korean Service Medal 
with battle star, and both the U.S. and Republic of Korea Presidential 
Unit Citations. General Mills retired after 33 years in the military, 
Active and Reserve.
  I am honored to count Judge Mills as a friend and hope you will value 
his remarks as much as I do.
  I ask that the remarks of Judge Mills be printed in the Record.
  The address follows:

                 Address of Major General Richard Mills

       In 1935, when the Italian fascist military machine invaded 
     the undeveloped and primitive nation of Ethiopia on the 
     African continent, Emperor Haille Selassie issued this 
     mobilization order to his people: ``Everyone will now be 
     mobilized and all boys old enough to carry a spear will be 
     sent to Addis Ababa. Married men will take their wives to 
     carry food and cook. Those without wives will take any woman 
     without a husband. Women with small babies need not go. The 
     blind, those who cannot walk, or for any reason cannot carry 
     a spear are exempted. Anyone found at home after the receipt 
     of this order will be hanged.''
       The imperial edict of the Conquering Lion of Judah, 
     although admittedly harsh, was unquestionably effective. And 
     its very tenor reflects the ultimate hopelessness of a nation 
     invaded by a far superior force and struggling to survive in 
     military conflict. The conscription laws of this country, of 
     course, have never been so elementary, desperate or severe, 
     yet they shared an identical purpose--to provide immediate 
     manpower to defend the nation!
       Since July 1, 1973, not a single person has been drafted 
     into the armed forces of the United States. Since then, the 
     Selective Service System has operated in its prescribed 
     standy role. And since then we have been an all-volunteer 
     military force in a peacetime capacity, and the role of the 
     Selective Service System is, and will continue to be, one of 
     simply assuring that necessary military manpower will be 
     available in case of an emergency.
       The Selective Service System, more commonly referred to 
     across the country as ``the draft'', is nothing new because 
     men have been drafted since Biblical time. It is related the 
     Book of Numbers in the Old Testament that God ordered Moses 
     to take a census of men 20 years of age and older. When he 
     and Aaron had accomplished this, they found an army of over 
     600,000 men. Under Julius Caesar in the Roman Empire, men 
     were drafted for military service for 10 years and had to 
     supply their own equipment. The Greek City States required 
     military service of all male citizens, regardless of age, and 
     thereby maintained their independence. But the first really 
     modern draft was instituted by Napoleon, and when he told his 
     generals, ``I need up to 25,000 men a month'', universal 
     military training established itself in France. As a matter 
     of fact, this very policy was adopted after the Napoleonic 
     wars by most European countries, with the exception of Great 
     Britain.
       During World War 1 and before the end of the war in 1918, 
     nearly 3,000,000 men had been inducted and 24,000,000 had 
     been registered. And in World War II, more than 50,000,000 
     men were registered and 10,000,000 of those were inducted 
     into the armed forces. I am confident that many of you 
     present today answered the call in this manner.
       The veterans of America, what kind of people are they?
       General of the Army Douglas MacArthur answered this 
     question in his famous speech before the U.S. Military 
     Academy's corps of cadets in May 1962: ``Yours is the 
     profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that 
     in war there is no substitute for victory, that if you lose, 
     the nation will be destroyed, that the very obsession of your 
     public service must be duty, honor, country.''
       The May 22, 1941 edition of Army Field Manual (FM) 100-5, 
     Field Service Regulations: Operations, which was republished 
     in 1997 by the U.S. Government Printing Office in Washington, 
     DC, spells out the battlefield doctrines used to fight and 
     win World War II. Here is what it says: ``Man is the 
     fundamental instrument of war; other instruments may change 
     but he remains relatively constant. In spite of the advances 
     in technology, the worth of the individual man is still 
     decisive.''
       World War II was the most important and far reaching event 
     of the 20th century.
       The total number of people killed, wounded or missing can 
     never be calculated. More than 10 million Allied servicemen 
     and nearly 6 million military men from the Axis countries 
     lost their lives. More than 50 countries took part in the war 
     and the whole world felt its effects.
       America suffered nearly 300,000 U.S. forces and merchant 
     seamen killed and almost 700,000 wounded. We had 157 navy 
     ships and submarines sunk and 866 merchant ships sent to the 
     bottom.
       At Pearl Harbor, the heart of the U.S. fleet--18 ships--was 
     destroyed in about 100 minutes. As historian John Keegan 
     wrote, ``It killed 50 million human beings, left hundreds of 
     millions of others wounded in mind or body, and materially 
     devastated much of the heartland of civilization.''
       World War II became a war of liberation after three 
     decisive turning points: Midway, North Africa and Stalingrad.
       By autumn 1942, the Allies also were on the offensive in 
     the European theater, successfully landing in North Africa 
     and beginning the trek toward Rome. ``Now this is not the 
     end,'' Winston Churchill said as 1942 closed. ``It is not 
     even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of 
     the beginning.''
       The Allies invaded Sicily. Then came Anzio Beach and the 
     terrible bloody battle for Monte Cassino, and on up through 
     Italy. The greatest naval armada of all time was assembled 
     for the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, where we 
     suffered 14,000 killed in action and 63,000 wounded.
       In the Pacific, it was a bloody invasion, island by island, 
     ``leapfrogging'' toward Japan. Iwo Jima and Okinawa took 
     heavy tolls. General MacArthur did return to the Philippines 
     as he had promised, but 14,000 were killed and 62,000 were 
     wounded in the battle of Luzon.
       The crucial year was 1945. For Nazi Germany and the 1,000-
     year German Reich, it was the end.
       In Italy, communist partisans captured ``Il Duce''--Benito 
     Mussolini--and his mistress. They were executed and hung by 
     their feet at a Milan gas station on April 28th. The very day 
     Mussolini died, Adolph Hitler married his longtime mistress, 
     Eva Braun, in his bunker. Within hours the same day, Hitler 
     shot himself with the same pistol he carried when he first 
     tried to seize power in a Munich beer hall years before.
       Also in 1945, America took its final giant steps across the 
     Pacific to victory. Submarines strangled the home islands of 
     Japan.

[[Page S6670]]

     American B-29 bombers incinerated Japan's major cities, 
     reducing industrial production by a third and leaving 14 
     million homeless. Admiral of the Fleet Chester Nimitz, 
     Pacific commander, convinced Pentagon planners to create 
     airfields even closer than Formosa by capturing Iwo Jima and 
     Okinawa.
       Kamikaze suicide planes sank 38 ships, damaged 368, and 
     killed over 5,000 sailors. Soldiers of the U.S. 10th Army and 
     the Marines suffered almost 72,000 killed and wounded.
       But on August 6, 1945, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress named 
     Enola Gay lifted from the runway at Tinian in the Marianas 
     and headed for Japan, nearly 1,500 miles across the open 
     Pacific. Six and a half hours later the atomic bomb was 
     dropped on Hiroshima. It detonated above the city with the 
     force of 20,000 pounds of TNT. Several thousand members of 
     the Second Japanese Army, then outside doing calisthenics, 
     were wiped out in a millisecond and the city was flattened.
       Three days later Nagasaki suffered the same fate. On August 
     14 the Japanese emperor finally overruled his military chiefs 
     and accepted Allied surrender terms.
       Americans of World War II understood that to bring down a 
     form of tyranny, it was necessary to sacrifice lives. In 
     liberty and in prosperity, the world after 1945 became a far, 
     far better place than it had been in 1939. World War II was 
     worth fighting, after all. To have lost would have brought 
     unimaginable sorrow and slavery.
       To the veterans here today that we honor--particularly from 
     World War II--I salute you. You stood tall, you did your 
     duty, you survived, you returned. And we remember with heavy 
     hearts those of our comrades that paid the supreme sacrifice, 
     that were wounded, that were prisoners of war. We who are 
     here are the fortunate ones. It has been truly said: ``In war 
     there are no victors, only survivors.''
       My fellow veterans, I salute you.
       God Bless America.

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