[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 93 (Friday, June 6, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5351-S5352]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       64TH ANNIVERSARY OF D-DAY

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise for two purposes. One is to speak 
for a couple minutes about today's anniversary of D-day and then also 
to talk about a Pennsylvanian who lost his life in Iraq and was this 
week awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. I, first, wish to speak 
about D-day.
  We observe this anniversary today, 64 years, but we have to think 
today about how we do that. We know what happened on D-day. For so many 
Americans, prior to just a number of years ago, it was a piece of 
history we read about in the history books. We learned a bit about it 
in school, but for a new generation of Americans, D-day has meant what 
we saw in the movie ``Saving Private Ryan.'' Thank goodness for that 
film because it captured so much of the horror, so much of the 
sacrifice and the valor of our troops.
  So we remember those Americans who gave their lives that day to save 
the world--literally to save the world from the horror that could have 
befallen the world if the axis powers were successful, and if D-day did 
not go as well as it did, they might have been successful.
  I am remembering today not just a generation of Americans, the 
``greatest generation'' of Americans as we know them now, who 
sacrificed so much, but I am thinking of people from my home State. I 
think Pennsylvania had more Medal of Honor winners in World War II than 
any other State. One of them was in my home area, Lackawanna County, 
Geno Merli, who served in Europe, in that theater of the war, and was 
awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and passed away a couple of 
years ago. So when I think of D-day, and I think of those sacrifices, I 
am thinking of heroes such as Geno Merli and so many others who gave 
the ultimate sacrifice. His Medal of Honor pertained to his combat not 
on D-day but in a related theater of war.
  We think about those who came back. We think about those who served 
and came back, many of them wounded permanently and irreparably, just 
as we see today with some of our troops in Iraq, and it brings to mind 
Abraham Lincoln's words in two contexts. One is the context of those 
who have served. He talked about the soldier--him who has borne the 
battle--that we must care for him who has borne the battle. And I think 
one way to honor those who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan or around 
the world or in wars like World War II is to remember something my 
father said years ago when he was serving as Governor of Pennsylvania, 
and he talked about praying for our troops, as important as that is, 
but he also talked about praying for ourselves; that we may be worthy 
of their valor.
  I believe the only way we can be worthy of the valor of those who 
served in World War II on D-day or served in Iraq or Afghanistan or 
anywhere around the world--in Vietnam, in the Korean War, whatever the 
conflict was--we can't just honor them by remembering and commemorating 
and talking about battles and all of the information that we can impart 
about war. We have to, if we are going to be worthy of their valor, do 
the right thing today, not just when we commemorate D-day but every 
day.
  There are at least two things we can do to pay tribute to those who 
served and to be worthy of their valor. One way is to make sure those 
who survive a war and come back to the United States have not just some 
health care but the best health care. And we have to fund it. 
Fortunately, in the last two budgets we have been doing that. We have 
been meeting or exceeding the budget on veterans health care.
  The second thing we must do, at the very least, is make sure anyone 
who serves in combat has an opportunity to be educated as best we can 
provide. That is why the vote on the GI bill recently was so essential, 
so central to meeting that basic obligation, so caring, as Abraham 
Lincoln said, for

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him--and increasingly her--who has borne the battle, and making sure 
they have an education.
  Today, when we remember the service of those who gave their lives, 
and in some cases gave sacrifice and survived D-day, I think we have to 
meet the obligation that service imposes on us in the Senate and as 
citizens.

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