[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 134 (Friday, November 19, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S11606]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       A PRAYER FOR THANKSGIVING

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, in a matter of days, families across this 
Nation will gather around the table to celebrate Thanksgiving, that 
quintessential American holiday on which we pause to give thanks for 
our many blessings as a Nation and to celebrate that most precious gift 
of all, the love and fellowship of our families and friends.
  There will be many empty chairs at the table this year as America 
observes the second Thanksgiving holiday since the invasion of Iraq. As 
many as 140,000 U.S. military personnel are currently serving in Iraq 
and another 20,000 in Afghanistan.
  What that means in human terms is that tens of thousands of American 
families will be sitting down to a somber Thanksgiving dinner, their 
prayers of thanksgiving tempered by their fears for the safety of their 
loved ones.
  Others, the families and loved ones of the more than 1,200 American 
troops who have been killed in Iraq, will sit down to a dinner seasoned 
with sorrow, the empty chair at the table a wrenching reminder of the 
terrible cost of war.
  Whatever one believes about the justification of the war in Iraq, it 
is an indisputable fact that the troops on the ground, and their 
families and friends here at home, are bearing the heaviest burden of 
the President's decision to go to war. And on holidays like 
Thanksgiving, when family and friends are held especially close to the 
heart, the weight of that burden becomes especially hard to bear.
  It is easy to talk about war in the abstract. It is easy for the 
President and his military advisers to point to the steady progression 
of U.S. victories against the insurgents in places like Falluja and 
Mosel as evidence that we are winning the war in Iraq. It is easy to be 
armchair quarterbacks in a bloody battle raging halfway across the 
world. But as anyone knows who has visited wounded troops at Walter 
Reed Army Hospital, who has gazed into the eyes of young widows or 
grieving parents, or who has read the poignant stories of the fallen, 
there is no such thing as war fought in the abstract or battles waged 
in statistics.
  War, to those who must fight it and to their loved ones who must 
endure it, is painfully real and painfully present at the table, on 
Thanksgiving and on every other day of the week for the duration of the 
conflict--and sometimes for long after the fighting has ceased. These 
are the men and women on the front lines of the battle, and it is they 
whom we must salute and thank for their sacrifice.
  I was struck by an article in the November 14 edition of the Los 
Angeles Times on the psychological toll that the war in Iraq is taking 
on U.S. soldiers and Marines. According to the newspaper, the Walter 
Reed Army Institute of Research has found that 15.6 percent of marines 
and 17.1 percent of soldiers surveyed after returning from Iraq 
reported suffering from major depression, generalized anxiety, or post-
traumatic stress disorder.

  Even more disturbing, the article predicted that the reported 
statistics were only the tip of the iceberg. According to the Times 
article:

       Army and Veterans Administration mental health experts say 
     there is reason to believe the war's ultimate psychological 
     fallout will worsen. The Army survey of 6,200 soldiers and 
     Marines involved only troops willing to report their 
     problems. The study did not look at reservists, who tend to 
     suffer a higher rate of psychological injury than career 
     Marines and soldiers. And the soldiers in the study served in 
     the early months of the war, when tours were shorter and 
     before the Iraqi insurgence took shape.

  The Los Angeles Times went on to quote Dr. Matthew J. Friedman, a 
professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Dartmouth Medical School 
and the executive director of the VA's National Center for Post 
Traumatic Stress Disorder: ``The bad news is that the study 
underestimated the prevalence of what we are going to see down the 
road,'' he said.
  What a chilling forecast. One has only to look at the video footage 
of the house-to-house, mosque-to-mosque combat in Falluja to understand 
the tremendous psychological stresses on the young servicemen who form 
the vanguard of our assault against the insurgents in Iraq. One has 
only to read of the wary convoys of soldiers and Marines who are tasked 
to traverse the treacherous stretches of deadly Iraqi highways day 
after day after day, or to edge their way into labyrinthine alleys of 
Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhoods, to understand the sheer 
psychological hell of the war in Iraq.
  The Pentagon keeps a daily log of U.S. military troops killed or 
wounded in Iraq. As of this morning, November 19, the Pentagon reports 
that 1,214 American troops have been killed in Iraq and another 8,956 
wounded, more than half of them so severely injured that they could not 
be directly returned to duty. Barely more than halfway through the 
month, November 2004 has already turned into the second deadliest month 
for American military forces since the United States invaded Iraq in 
March of 2003. Where and when will the carnage end?
  The casualty statistics are heartbreaking enough, especially on the 
cusp of what is supposed to be one of the most joyful seasons of the 
year. But they do not represent the whole story. The Defense Department 
does not tally the walking wounded, those soldiers and Marines who 
return home from duty physically fit but emotionally scarred, sometimes 
for life. These men and women are also casualties of the war in Iraq, 
and they and their families may suffer just as deeply as those whose 
wounds are plain to see. Modern medicine has come a long way in mending 
the broken bodies of soldiers wounded in combat, but I fear the 
military still has a long way to go in identifying and mending the 
broken psyches of otherwise healthy veterans.
  And so on this Thanksgiving, I hope that all Americans will take a 
moment to pray for the safety of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, 
for the eternal salvation of those who have died in service to their 
country, and for the speedy recovery of all who have been wounded, 
including those who are suffering from the invisible ravages of 
emotional wounds. I also hope that Americans will take a moment to pray 
for the families and loved ones of all those who have been called to 
duty in the battle zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. We cannot fill the 
empty chair at the table, but we can offer an abundance of love and 
support for our neighbors and friends whose lives have been upended by 
the war, and we can pray most fervently that our troops will be 
returned home quickly, and that their families will not have to endure 
another Thanksgiving without them.
  Praise Almighty God for His kindness, His love, His mercy. Thank Him.
  I yield the floor.

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