[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 100 (Wednesday, July 26, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8281-S8282]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. DURBIN (for himself and Mr. Coleman):
  S. 3744. A bill to establish the Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad 
Program; to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am a lucky politician, a fortunate soul. 
I am lucky that early in my political life, I met two men who had a 
dramatic impact on me and on my decision to seek public office and to 
be involved in public service. The first was a Senator from Illinois 
named Paul Douglas who served from 1948 to 1966 and decided in the year 
1966 to hire a college intern named Durbin from East St. Louis, IL, who 
was going to school at Georgetown University. That was the first time I 
ever walked into a Senate office building, and I tell you, I was swept 
away by the experience. I knew at that time that I wanted to be a part 
of the excitement of this life on Capitol Hill and government, and I 
didn't know how I would ever have a chance to do it. I never dreamed I 
would run for office. But Paul Douglas, my first mentor in public 
service and political office, was there at the right moment in my life 
to inspire me to pursue at least some aspect of public service.
  He introduced me to a fellow named Paul Simon who later served as the 
U.S. Senator from Illinois. Paul was elected in 1984 and served until 
1996. During that 12-year period of time, I was a Member of the House 
of Representatives. For many years before, Paul Simon had been my 
closest friend and mentor in politics. He gave me my first job out of 
law school, when my wife Loretta and I packed everything we owned in a 
very small truck. She took the baby on a plane to fly to Springfield, 
IL, and I drove the truck out with our dog sitting in the front seat of 
my U-Haul truck with me and took my first job working for then 
Lieutenant Governor Paul Simon.
  I was lucky. I learned the craft of politics from Paul Simon. I saw 
in his public service, in his public life, how good this job can be and 
how important it can be if you realize you need to be driven by some 
basic principles. Paul Simon used to say--and I have heard the speech 
so many times; I have even given it--that politics is about two things. 
First, people expect you to be honest, and I think he meant beyond 
dollar honesty--issue honesty; people expect you to tell them what you 
really believe rather than try to hide what your beliefs might be in 
some political double-talk.
  The second thing Paul Simon says is that politics is about helping 
the helpless. He believed there is some mission to this. He was a son 
of a Lutheran minister and a proud Christian but reached across to 
other denominations of religions for his own inspiration. He believed 
that helping the helpless was an important part of government 
responsibility.
  Mr. President, today I am going to introduce legislation with Senator 
Norm Coleman of Minnesota. It is legislation that reflects the vision 
of Senator Paul Simon.
  After the terrible attack of September 11, 2001, Paul Simon, typical 
of his outlook on the world, decided that he could imagine a more 
peaceful world, even in that time of great upheaval. He talked about 
promoting peace and security through understanding and global 
awareness. Specifically, he began to lay out a path to a United States 
that would be populated by Americans who have been abroad and have a 
personal connection to another part of the world. His vision was to 
help prepare a generation with greater cultural competence and real 
life experience in societies unlike our own.
  In the months before his untimely death, Senator Paul Simon came back 
to Washington to talk to me and his former colleagues in the Senate 
about the need to strengthen this country's international 
understanding. As a direct result of his work, Congress established the 
Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Commission to develop the framework for an 
international study abroad program for America's college students. I 
was honored to serve on this bipartisan Lincoln Commission.
  Late last year, the Commission published its report recommending the 
Congress establish a study abroad program for undergraduate students 
that would help build this global awareness and international 
understanding. It is a privilege for me to introduce legislation based 
on the recommendations of this Commission.
  Paul Simon, like so many committed to strengthening our ability to 
lead by investing in the education of young people, struggled with the 
question of how America could lead while so few of our citizens have an 
appropriate knowledge and understanding of the world outside of our 
borders. The United States is a military and economic superpower, yet 
it is continuously threatened by a serious lack of international 
competence in an age of growing globalization. When you travel 
overseas, you cannot help but be struck by the fact that people in 
other countries know so much more about us than we know about them.
  Our lack of world awareness is now seen as a national liability. The 
challenges we face as Americans are increasingly global in nature, and 
our youth must be well prepared for its future. Our national security, 
international economic competitiveness, and diplomatic efforts in 
working toward a peaceful society rest on our global competence and 
ability to appreciate language and culture throughout the world.
  Today I joined a number of our colleagues who walked across the 
Rotunda over to the House of Representatives for a joint meeting of 
Congress where the Prime Minister of Iraq, Mr. al-Maliki, spoke to us. 
He spoke in inspiring terms about his goals for Iraq, an Iraq that was 
based on democratic principles, an Iraq that was based on freedom, an 
Iraq that was free of terrorism.
  The United States has made a major investment in that effort. We are 
now in the fourth year of a war, a war that has claimed over 2,569 
American lives, including 102 brave soldiers from my home State of 
Illinois. Over 20,000 of our soldiers have returned with serious 
injuries--2,000 of those with brain injuries and lives that will be 
compromised and more challenging because they agreed to stand and serve 
and fight for America and they went to Iraq and paid a heavy price.

  We have spent some $320 billion of American treasure on the war in 
Iraq, and we continue to spend, by estimate, $3 billion every single 
week on Iraq, realizing that the end is not near and

[[Page S8282]]

there is no end in sight. We hope our troops will start to come home 
soon, but there is no indication they will.
  Yet, the best military leaders in America, when they sit face to face 
with us here in private meetings, tell us the same thing we have heard 
from many members of this administration. We will not win in Iraq a 
military victory. The victory ultimately has to be a political victory, 
a victory where we convince the Iraqi people that this is a far better 
course to follow, to move toward self-governance and democracy, freedom 
and free markets, and to move away from the days of dictatorships and 
the thinking that led people to a divisive moment in their lives. We 
need to move away from that.
  It suggests, even with the strongest military in the world, giving it 
their best efforts every single minute of every single day, the 
ultimate answer in Iraq and so many other countries is not a military 
answer. It is an answer that brings together political and economic 
elements that ultimately will spell the success of that nation.
  The capacity of the United States to lead in the 21st century, not 
just in Iraq but all over the world, demands that we school new 
generations of American citizens who understand the cultural and social 
realities beyond what they have experienced here at home. Senator Simon 
understood this. He saw the United States as a large community, part of 
an even larger world family. When he saw signs that read, ``God bless 
America,'' Paul Simon used to say, ``I wish they would read `God bless 
America and the rest of the world.' ''
  Senator Simon was a great public servant. His service in Congress was 
exemplary. He was a man with an intrinsic sense of justice and passion 
for the public good. His deep convictions were matched by a genuine 
zeal for the work he did here in Washington and back in Illinois.
  When he retired from the Senate, there was a little ceremony on the 
floor of the Senate, the likes of which this Chamber has never seen. 
The decision was made that since Paul Simon always wore a bow tie, that 
on one given day all of the Senators would come to the floor wearing 
bow ties. To Paul's surprise, he walked in here to find so many of his 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle saluting his retirement by 
wearing his trademark bow tie.
  After he retired from the Senate, Paul Simon carried his vision and 
his energy for leadership back to Southern Illinois University, 
founding the Public Policy Institute at that university in Carbondale, 
IL. In that role, he trained future generations to understand the 
values he fought for his entire life.
  The Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Fellowship Program, which Paul Simon 
inspired, is designed to encourage and support the experience of 
studying overseas in countries whose people, culture, language, 
government, and religion might be very different from ours. The bill I 
am introducing today with Senator Coleman would create a program that 
encourages nontraditional students to spend part of their undergraduate 
careers in nontraditional study abroad destinations. It is said you 
never understand a country until you visit it and you never appreciate 
your home until you leave it. The program we envision provides direct 
fellowships to students but also provides financial incentives to 
colleges and universities to make internal policy changes that make it 
easier for students to study abroad.
  We believe it is the institutional change that will allow the U.S. to 
sustain a steady growth in the number of students who experience this 
learning abroad. As we become a nation whose citizens have studied in 
other countries, we will become more understanding of the rest of the 
world and they will come to know us better.
  We learned this with the Peace Corps. As I travel around the world, I 
never cease to be amazed at the impact which the Peace Corps has had on 
countries, on small villages, and on people. I can recall visiting 
Nepal. I went to Nepal with a former colleague from the home State of 
the Presiding Officer, Oklahoma, Mike Synar. We went to a tiny little 
village way up in the mountains outside of Kathmandu. After we trekked 
up there at high altitudes, out of breath, we came to this little 
village and all of the people were there. They had the third eye on 
their head. There were garlands of flowers around their necks. They 
were dressed in the best clothes they had, and offered us food. And as 
we sat down, they asked us if we knew Paul Jones, from Pittsburgh, PA.
  Of course, we didn't. But we didn't want to say that right off. We 
said, ``Who was he?''
  ``Well, you must know him. He was our Peace Corps volunteer. He was 
here for 2 years. He made such a difference in this village. You must 
know Paul.''
  I made up the name, but it goes to show you that the efforts and 
involvement of Americans overseas not only will help people there but 
will help those who live through the experience. For so many Peace 
Corps volunteers that I met, it was a transformative moment, to serve 
in that Peace Corps at that moment in their life and to go through that 
experience.
  Sending more American students for that overseas experience will not 
only help those students, it will help others around the world to see 
who we are. Think of the battle of images going on in the world today 
even as we speak, images of America that are terrible, images that are 
distorted, that are being shown to people around the world every day. 
And they say this is what America looks like when in fact it isn't even 
close to the truth.
  We can become a nation where we use our public education system to 
expand not only the reach of America's message, but the experience of 
Americans in other countries. I can think of no more appropriate 
tribute to honor Paul Simon, a great statesman himself, than to 
establish this study abroad program.
  In the weeks before Senator Simon's death, Senator Simon wrote the 
following:

       A nation cannot drift into greatness. We must dream and we 
     must be willing to make small sacrifices to achieve those 
     dreams. If I want to improve my home, I must sacrifice a 
     little. If we want to improve our Nation and the world, we 
     must be willing to sacrifice a little. This major national 
     initiative . . . can lift our vision and responsiveness to 
     the rest of the world. Those who read these lines need to do 
     more than nod in agreement [Paul Simon wrote.] This is a 
     battle for understanding that you must help wage.

  I ask my colleagues to join Senator Coleman and myself in this 
bipartisan legislation to help keep alive Senator Paul Simon's vision 
for a culturally aware and a better world.

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