[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 87 (Tuesday, June 22, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7167-S7168]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            TRIBUTE TO DAVID HENRY, SR. AND DAVID HENRY, JR.

 Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish to recount a special 
discovery made recently in south Georgia by a Birmingham constituent of 
mine. The discovery was of a letter dated April 8, 1943, that was sent 
from a 24-year-old Alabama soldier serving in North Africa to his 
newborn son back home. A world war was raging and the letter's author, 
David Henry, Sr., of Roanoke, AL, was concerned that he might never get 
to see his newborn son. It is a special letter, indeed, sent from 
another continent and reflecting the essential values and life's 
lessons that Mr. Henry wanted to impart to his 3-month-old son, David 
Henry, Jr. Among other things, the letter tells young David about the 
value of choosing work you enjoy, developing a love of reading, finding 
a hobby, and guarding against greed and selfishness.
  Fortunately, Mr. Henry, Sr., survived the war and returned home to 
his wife and young son. The letter and the penned wisdom, however, has 
lain dormant for more than 60 years. Mr. Henry, Jr., discovered the 
letter recently while cleaning out his parents' house in south Georgia. 
Mr. Henry's dad died this past February. Mr. Henry sent me a copy of 
his father's letter,

[[Page S7168]]

urging that it be used in some productive way. I found the lessons and 
wisdom in the letter profound, and as relevant today as they were in 
1943. I forwarded the letter to The Birmingham News, which ran a timely 
and touching Page 1 story on May 29, 2004, over the Memorial Day 
weekend.
  Written far away from his home and loved ones, Mr. Henry, Sr.'s, 
letter truly reflects the thoughts of a young man wise beyond his 
years. I ask consent that the letter and the accompanying newspaper 
article by Birmingham News reporter Carla Crowder be printed in the 
Record, so that all can benefit from its timeless wisdom.
  The material follows:

                     (North Africa, April 8, 1943)

       ``My Dear Son:
       ``This is the first letter your dad has ever written you, 
     and I expect it will be the last until I see you. Today you 
     are almost three months old. Tomorrow will be your birthday, 
     and I can only say `Happy birthday, son.'
       ``When you were born I was a long, long way from your 
     mother doing my little part toward preserving the freedom of 
     our country. Had there been no war, nothing could have kept 
     me from being with your mother on January the ninth. There 
     was a war, though, and I am glad that I can say that I had a 
     part toward making our country a safe place so that our 
     mothers can live in peace and comfort.
       ``There are lots of things I have learned in the past few 
     years, things that I would like for you to know and things 
     that I am sure you will find to be true as you grow older.
       ``If I were asked to make an eleventh commandment I think I 
     should say. `Thou shall not be selfish.' You will find as the 
     years roll by that it is very hard to keep from being 
     selfish. In this greedy world of ours we run over each other 
     trying to get, we know not what, but with the idea that we 
     must get it before the other fellow does. We do not know when 
     we have enough. We never want to turn anything loose, even if 
     we do not need it. We always want more if we have no place to 
     put it. I think that the first lesson toward happiness is to 
     learn to share what you have with some one else.
       ``I should like for my son to know how to work and to enjoy 
     it. I think that the secret toward learning to like to work 
     is to believe that you can do your job just a little better 
     than anyone else. I think that every successful man enjoys 
     hard, strenuous outside work as much or maybe more than the 
     office. Start early, learn to cut wood, learn the art of 
     rolling a wheelbarrow or how to handle a hoe. Take long 
     walks. Like through wooded country and by all means never 
     miss a rabbit hunt.
       ``Begin early to read. Always have something in your pocket 
     to read while waiting on a bus or while trying to go to 
     sleep. Reading is knowledge and knowledge is success.
       ``Until you are one hundred years old, never be without a 
     hobby. If you are interested in woodwork, then you shall have 
     a shop before you are 10 years of age. If you are interested 
     in radio, then you shall have any type of equipment to tinker 
     with that you wish. Gather information from every source 
     possible. Gather reading material from every place where you 
     might find it. What you learn from your hobbies goes a long 
     way toward your success in life.
       ``Learn early to make friends. Always remember that you 
     cannot buy real friendship. Remember that a real friend is 
     one of the most valuable possessions a person may have. Learn 
     new names, new faces, facts about people. Learn to really 
     know people.
       ``There is quite a bit of difference between saving and 
     being selfish. If a person should throw something away, and 
     you come along and save it until you need it, than that would 
     be saving. If you have something you do not need and you 
     throw it away, even though you know someone else might be 
     able to use it, then you are being selfish. Learn to appraise 
     an article, and if it has a value, then save it. Remember 
     what it is and where it is, so that when you or someone else 
     needs it you will be able to find it. Learn to save money. 
     Put it where it can be used. Do not hide it so that no one 
     else can use it.
       ``One of the most important things that I want my boy to 
     know is that it always pays to be honest. No matter how small 
     or how insignificant, it always pays to tell the truth. Be 
     honest, do not take that which does not belong to you. Do not 
     bother with other people's things. However deep you get in 
     trouble, go to someone, tell them the truth and you will find 
     the easiest way out.
       ``Very soon you will make a trip from Birmingham to 
     Roanoke, a distance of about one hundred and twenty miles. 
     That is farther away from home than I was until I was about 
     19 years old. You will learn as you grow older that a city is 
     a city whether it is in Alabama, Georgia, New York, England 
     or Africa. I want you to travel early, to find out what it 
     took me years to find out, that every country has its hills 
     and dells, its rivers and branches, its oceans and seas. That 
     you can find all sorts of people in any country, city or 
     village. Never-the-less I want you to travel a lot, see the 
     world. See for yourself that all people want a chance for 
     freedom, a chance to worship as they choose, a chance to talk 
     as they choose and a chance to earn their own living.
           ``Your loving Dad''
     David P. Henry.
                                  ____


                [From the Birmingham News, May 29, 2004]

              After 61 Years, Son Gets Lessons To Live By

                           (By Carla Crowder)

       He was only 24 years old, a small-town Alabama man serving 
     in North Africa in World War II. But David Henry Sr. had a 
     lot to say back then as he penned a letter to his newborn 
     son.
       ``This is the first letter your dad has ever written to 
     you, and I expect it will be the last until I see you. Today 
     you are almost three months old,'' the letter begins.
       It is dated April 8, 1943, Sixth-one years later, David 
     Henry Jr. read his father's words.
       For the first time.
       His mother apparently forgot to pass the letter along, and 
     he had no idea it existed. ``With seven children, and us 
     moving around a lot, a lot of things just got packed up, 
     pictures and letters,'' he said.
       What he uncovered while going through his parents' 
     belongings last fall revealed a young father wise beyond his 
     years.
       ``It meant so much to me to be able to hear what he thought 
     was important, and the things he mentioned in there contained 
     such wisdom for a young person,'' said Henry Jr., 61, who 
     works as director of information services for American Cast 
     Iron Pipe Co. ``It was so important, I just want to share it 
     with the world.''
       Henry Jr. was a toddler when his father returned from the 
     war. His parents had grown up in Roanoke in Randolph County, 
     but lived throughout the Southeast while his father was in 
     the military.
       The 1943 letter extols the value of honesty, friendship and 
     hard work, as might be expected. But it goes much further.
       ``You will find as the years roll by that is it very hard 
     to keep from being selfish. In this greedy world of ours, we 
     run over each other trying to get, we know not what, but with 
     the idea that we must get it before the other fellow does . . 
     . I think the first lesson toward happiness is to learn to 
     share what you have with someone else,'' his father wrote.
       This advice was no surprise, Henry Jr. said.
       His father once dropped the price of some property he was 
     selling, right at closing time, much to the surprise of the 
     buyer and the lawyers in the room. ``I feel like I'm 
     overcharging you,'' he told the buyer.
       After his father retired from the Air Force and the U.S. 
     Postal Service, he began cutting limbs and trees, ``big old 
     water oak trees,'' down in southwest Georgia where he lived. 
     He charged next to nothing. ``He probably cut trees for half 
     the widows in Bainbridge,'' his son said.
       There's a bit of that in the letter as well.
       ``Learn to cut wood, learn the art of rolling a wheelbarrow 
     or how to handle a hoe. Take long walks. Hike through rough 
     wooded country,'' it reads.
       He encouraged his boy to never be without a hobby. Henry 
     Jr. loves photography.
       He encouraged travel.
       ``You will learn as you grow older that a city is a city 
     whether it is in Alabama, Georgia, New York, England or 
     Africa,'' it says. ``See for yourself that all people want a 
     chance for freedom, a chance to worship as they choose, a 
     chance to talk as they choose and a chance to earn their own 
     living.''
       Henry Jr. took that advice as well. He recently returned 
     from a trip to Morocco, where he tried to seek out places his 
     father might have been during the war.
       By the time the letter was discovered, the hopeful young 
     airman was dying from dementia in an assisted living center.
       Though the son could not determine how much his father 
     understood, he had to tell him what he'd found.
       ``But he didn't understand, he couldn't communicate with me 
     about it,'' Henry Jr. said. ``I did talk to him about it, and 
     I thanked him for it.''
       He read the letter at his father's funeral in February, and 
     everyone in the church told him ``that's exactly how dad 
     was.''

     

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