[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 71 (Wednesday, May 25, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5940-S5942]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              WAR IN IRAQ

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, as we approach this weekend, I thought 
I would give some thought to what occasions this commemorative holiday 
and what I think about as we approach Memorial Day. I want to recall 
some of the incidents, the results of war and its consequences.
  It has been a historic week in the Senate. We averted a showdown that 
could have permanently damaged this institution and destroyed the 
unique American system of checks and balances that makes our Government 
the greatest in the history of the world. This was the topic of nonstop 
television coverage and a forest worth of newspaper articles.
  In short, the story about the Senate's procedure for approving 
judicial nominees totally dominated the news, but there was another 
story this week, a story that did not receive much attention. It was 
the story of at least 14 brave American soldiers who died in Iraq since 
Sunday. These deaths came as a wave of bombings and suicide attacks 
engulfed Baghdad and other cities.
  While we go about our business in the Senate, while other Americans 
go

[[Page S5941]]

about their daily lives, the war in Iraq drags on. It has been a month 
since the Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced his new 
government, and during that time at least 620 people have been killed 
in Iraq, including 58 U.S. troops. During that time, it has been a 
painful recognition for families across America and across my State. 
Sadly, the American people have become so numb to these deaths that 
they are no longer considered major news, and the administration has 
not helped matters by continuing its questionable policy of banning 
photographs or video images of the flag-draped coffins of our heroes 
making their final trip home.
  I have to ask a question: Is the purpose of this policy to hide the 
sacrifices of our soldiers and their families? I am hard-pressed to 
think of any other reason. This is an issue I have discussed on the 
floor of the Senate before. It stuns me that at the moment of the 
return of the remains of a family member, that casket covered in honor 
by the flag of our country is hidden from the public. No photos are 
allowed, no photographs allowed, and no attention paid.
  As a veteran of an earlier war, I am very conscious of our 
responsibility to veterans and to those who are fighting the battle for 
all of us, and I wonder why the administration continues its policy of 
banning photographs or video images of the flag-draped coffins of our 
heroes making their final trip home. It seems as if they want to 
conceal the sacrifices of our soldiers and their families. I am hard 
pressed to think of any other reason.
  As have most of my colleagues, where there has been a loss of life in 
the State that they represent, we have gone to a funeral or a ceremony 
acknowledging the sacrifice that these individuals have made and the 
pain their families undergo. I was at a funeral ceremony at Arlington 
when one of our New Jersey soldiers was buried. His family was present, 
mother and father. He was a young man, in his early twenties. I watched 
the ceremony as the Honor Guard escorted his coffin to the place of 
burial. It was covered with a flag. The Honor Guard was so precise and 
so immaculate in their appearance, so honorable. They took the American 
flag and folded it so gently but ever so precisely until through eight 
escorts and the captain of the Honor Guard, they made the folds so 
carefully until they got it into a triangle, and the captain of the 
Guard walked over to the man's mother and presented it to her. It was 
such a touching ceremony, this recognition of honor, this understanding 
of what this soldier who perished had done for his country.
  I cannot understand why it is that we are not allowed to photograph 
these coffins when they come home with the remains, when they come to 
the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before they go to the mortuary 
where the families have an opportunity to make certain that it is their 
family member who is being buried. But there is no identification of 
name, there is no ceremony. No family needs to feel as though its 
privacy is being invaded.
  So I question that. I think it would be appropriate on this Memorial 
Day to start off after the Memorial Day recess and say, yes, anyone who 
is returned in a flag-draped coffin is entitled to receive the honor 
and the respect of the country that sent them there, our country. It is 
appropriate.
  The pain goes on almost every day--reports of car bombings, roadside 
bombs, suicide attacks. They kill soldiers, they kill civilians, they 
kill children, sometimes in the double digits in a single incident, 20, 
30 people. What they are trying to do is crush the spirit of the Iraqis 
who have been through so much at this point. Our people continue on 
bravely serving their country, serving the orders that they get from 
their Nation.
  Within the last week, military leaders, however, had a change of tune 
when the leading general in charge of our operations in Iraq described 
as a sober assessment the situation in Iraq. That is the first that we 
have heard about that. We have heard continuously that we have enough 
troops to do the job, that the Iraqis are learning what they have to do 
to take over. It is not true. I was in Iraq approximately a year ago 
and saw how slowly the job of preparing policemen to take over was 
going. It was painfully slow. Often the recruits were found to be 
hopelessly untrained for the assignment, without the ability to drive a 
car, no driver's license, not literate. They were training something 
like 80 every 6 weeks.
  So it is going to take a long time at the rate of 80 in 6 weeks to 
get 50,000 policemen trained.
  According to the assessment that we heard from the commanding 
general, the bottom line was that American troops will probably be 
there for years to come. For the 140,000 who serve there today, there 
is no quick end in sight.
  I do not take the floor to debate the wisdom of the war in Iraq or 
the way it has been prosecuted. Today I speak to honor the more than 
1,600 American soldiers who have given their lives in Iraq and more 
than 170 who have died in Afghanistan.
  In front of my office in the Hart Building there are pictures of 
those fallen heroes identifying them by name as a reminder of what is 
going on even as we discuss issues of some critical relevance and some 
not so important. The most important thing is that we have people who 
are in their young years paying with their lives for the battle in 
which we are engaged in the Middle East.
  Monday is Memorial Day. It is a day when our Nation honors the fallen 
heroes of all of our wars. I hope every American will pause for a 
minute during the day and reflect on the price that is being paid for 
our freedom and on those who have paid that price. The wars in Iraq and 
Afghanistan so far have claimed 56 sons of New Jersey, sons who died 
pursuing the battle in Afghanistan. Thirty were killed since last 
Memorial Day. Eleven have died this year. The wars have produced 
funerals and wakes and I have met the grieving families.

  One of the most recent funerals I attended was for PFC Min Soo Choi. 
Here is a picture of the young man. His family came to America from 
Korea 5 years ago, in search of a better life. I have met his parents. 
I saw them this week again.
  His story struck a chord with me because many years ago my parents 
were also immigrants, and I also enlisted in the Army as a young man. I 
enlisted when I was 18 years old. Min Soo was killed by a roadside bomb 
in Iraq on February 26. He wasn't even a U.S. citizen, but he loved 
this country and what it stands for.
  At Min Soo's funeral I heard about what a unique individual he was. I 
felt the void that his death had left in the lives of his family and 
friends, and that is true of every 1 of the 1,600 who have died in this 
war. Each death leaves an ache that will never heal in the heart of a 
parent or spouse, brother or sister, or a small child. So on this 
Memorial Day I will pause not only to remember our fallen soldiers but 
also the loved ones they have left behind.
  Mr. President, I know the hour is late, but I hope you will indulge 
me by allowing me to read into the Congressional Record, where they 
will be enshrined for all times, the names of the 56 soldiers with New 
Jersey connections who have given their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan:

       SGT Steven Checo, Elizabeth; Corporal Michael Edward 
     Curtin, Howell; Specialist Benjamin W. Sammis, West Long 
     Branch; Staff Sergeant Terry W. Hemingway, Willingboro; 
     Specialist Gil Mercado, Paterson--The city I was born in; 
     Specialist Narson B. Sullivan, North Brunswick; Specialist, 
     Kyle A. Griffin, Emerson; Sergeant First Class Gladimir 
     Philippe, Linden; Specialist, Richard P. Orengo, Perth Amboy; 
     First Sergeant Christopher D. Coffin, Somerville; Petty 
     Officer First Class David M. Tapper, Atco; Captain Brian R. 
     Faunce, Ocean; Staff Sgt. Fredrick L. Miller Jr., Jackson; 
     Specialist Simeon Nathaniel Hunte, Essex; 2nd Lieut. Richard 
     Torres, Passaic; Sergeant Joel Perez, Newark; Specialist 
     Marion P. Jackson, Jersey City; Specialist Ryan Travis Baker, 
     Browns Mills; Major Steven Plumhoff, Neshanic Station; Staff 
     Sergeant Thomas A. Walkup, Millville; Specialist Marc S. 
     Seiden, Brigantine; Second Lieutenant Seth J. Dvorin, 
     Pennington; Private First Class Bruce Miller Jr., Orange; 
     Specialist Adam D. Froehlich, Pine Hill; Second Lieutenant 
     John Thomas Wroblewski, Oak Ridge; Lance Corporal Phillip E. 
     Frank, Cliffwood Beach; Specialist Frank K. Rivers, Newark; 
     Specialist Phillip I. Spakosky, Browns Mills; Sergeant Frank 
     T. Carvill, Carlstadt; Specialist Christopher M. Duffy, 
     Brick; Sergeant Ryan E. Doltz, Mine Hill; Sergeant Humberto 
     F. Timoteo, Newark; Chief Warrant Officer Nicholas P. DiMona 
     II, Barrington; Sergeant Alan D. Sherman, Ocean; CPL Terry 
     Holmes Ordonez, Paterson; Lance Corporal Vincent M. Sullivan, 
     Chatham; Specialist Anthony J. Dixon, Lindenwold; Army 
     Special Forces Michael Yury Tarlavsky, Clifton; Specialist

[[Page S5942]]

     Yoe M. Aneiros, Newark; Specialist Bryan L. Freeman, 
     Lumberton; Corporal Tyler Ryan, Gloucester City; Private 
     First Class Stephen Benish, Linden; Specialist David P. 
     Mahlenbrock, Maple Shade; Lance Cpl Brian P. Parrello, West 
     Milford; 1st Class Sgt. Paul Karpowich, trained in 
     Pennsauken; Specialist Alain Kamolvathin, Blairstown; 
     Sergeant Stephen Sherman, Neptune; Corporal Sean P. Kelly, 
     Pitman; Lance Corporal Harry Raymond Swain III, Millville; 
     PFC Min Soo Choi, River Vale--his picture is here; Captain 
     Sean Grimes, Mother lives in Dover; Major Steven W. Thornton, 
     based at Fort Monmouth; Private Robert C. White, Camden; 
     Major John Charles Spahr, Cherry Hill; Staff Sgt, Anthony Lee 
     Goodwin, Mt. Holly; Lance Corporal Jourdan L. Grez, Long 
     Branch.

  I also want to mention two civilians from New Jersey who were killed 
while supporting the war effort in Iraq: Paul M. Johnson of Eagleswood, 
and Thomas Jaichner of Burlington City.
  I know each of my colleagues will join me this weekend in paying 
tribute to the brave soldiers who have sacrificed their lives for our 
country.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to 
speak as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Ms. Snowe related to the introduction of S. 1127 are 
printed in today's Record under ``Statements On Introduced Bills And 
Joint Resolutions.'')

                          ____________________