[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 38 (Wednesday, April 6, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S3267]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   TRIBUTE TO TWO GREAT AMERICANS: FRED KOREMATSU AND ERNEST CHILDERS

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, It is said that Pope John Paul II was 
probably the most widely recognized person in the entire world. We have 
heard many inspiring tributes to this great man, and rightly so.
  I would like to take a few minutes to pay tribute to two other great 
men who died recently. Unlike the Pope, their names and their faces 
were not instantly recognizable. But they shared some of his finest 
qualities. They were remarkably brave men who risked much to protect 
transcendent truths, and who continued to defend those truths even in 
the twilight of their lives. In their cases, the truths were the 
principles that are the essence of America.
  Both of these men first made their marks on American history during 
World War II.
  Ernest Childers was a Native American, a member of the Creek Nation 
from Oklahoma, and a recipient of the Medal of Honor.
  He was a lieutenant in the Army National Guard when he arrived on the 
beaches of Salerno, Italy, in September 1943. Hearing that many in his 
division were pinned down by enemy fire in nearby hills, he organized a 
group of eight soldiers to help clear a path to rescue the endangered 
soldiers.
  An exploding enemy shell threw Lt. Childers to the ground, breaking 
his ankle, but he continued to advance. Ordering his soldiers to lay 
down a base of fire to protect him, he crawled--with his shattered 
ankle--toward an enemy sniper's nest.
  Almost out of ammunition, he reached down and threw a rock at the 
snipers guessing correctly that they would mistake it for a hand 
grenade. He was right. When the snipers stood to run, Lt. Childers shot 
and killed one of them; one of his soldiers killed the other. Later 
that day, he single-handedly captured an enemy soldier.
  After recovering from his wounds, he was sent back into combat and 
fought at the Battle of Anzio, where he was wounded again. He was 
recovering in a military hospital when he learned that he was to 
receive the Medal of Honor.
  He retired from the Army as a lieutenant colonel in 1965, worked 
briefly in Washington, then returned home to Oklahoma.
  After September 11, he wrote a widely circulated column criticizing 
the attacks on some Arab-Americans. He wrote:

       Even though I have darker skin than some Americans, that 
     doesn't mean I'm any less patriotic than any other American. 
     I am appalled that people who call themselves ``Americans'' 
     are attacking and killing other Americans simply because of 
     their skin color.

  Now let me speak of another recently lost. Fred Korematsu also 
suffered a great injury in World War II. In his case, however, the 
injury wasn't physical, and it wasn't inflicted by enemy soldiers. It 
was inflicted by the United States government in one of the most 
shameful chapters in our Nation's history.
  In 1942, Mr. Korematsu was 22 years old, living in California, when 
the U.S. government declared 120,000 Japanese-American citizens and 
immigrants ``enemy aliens'' and ordered that they be forced from their 
homes into internment camps--prison camps.
  Mr. Korematsu--who was born in California to immigrant parents--had 
tried twice to enlist in the military after Pearl Harbor, but was 
rejected for health reasons. He did everything he could think of to be 
accepted as American. He changed his name, and even had an operation to 
try to make his eyes appear rounder. Still, he was still ordered to be 
imprisoned at Tule Lake, an infamous internment camp in California.
  His family and friends complied with the order. But Fred Korematsu 
resisted because, he said, he was an American, and he believed that the 
internments were unconstitutional.
  He challenged the order all the way to the United States Supreme 
Court. In a decision that remains one of the most infamous decisions in 
its history, the Court ruled in 1944 that the internment of American 
citizens of Japanese descent was justified by the need to combat 
sabotage and espionage.
  It took nearly 40 years for Fred Korematsu's conviction for opposing 
internment to be overturned by a U.S. District Court.
  In 1988, Mr. Korematsu helped win an apology and reparations from the 
United States Government for internment camp survivors. A decade later, 
he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
  In November 2003, Mr. Korematsu did something he never expected he 
would have to do again in his life. He filed another brief before the 
Supreme Court protesting what he believed to be unconstitutional 
internments by our Government only this time, the detainees were being 
held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
  Mr. Korematsu's brief contained a simple plea.

     . . . to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, this court 
     should make clear that the United States respects 
     constitutional and human rights, even in times of war.

  Fred Korematsu died on March 30 at his home in Larkspur, CA after a 
long respiratory illness. He leaves his wife, Katherine, and their son 
and daughter.
  Ernest Childers, a courageous warrior to the end, died March 17 at a 
hospice in Tulsa after suffering a number of strokes. He leaves his 
wife of 59 years, Yolanda, and their three children.
  These men were recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the 
highest civilian honor our Nation can bestow on an individual; and the 
Medal of Honor, the highest military honor our Government grants.
  They risked everything as young men to defend the great principles on 
which our Nation is based, and they continued to speak out for those 
principles until they died. They were truly American heroes.
  Our thoughts and prayers go out to their family and friends.

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