[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 117 (Wednesday, July 16, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H6651-H6652]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           HONORING TONY SNOW

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor tonight to honor the 
memory of Tony Snow, commentator, news anchor, White House press 
secretary, a husband and father. The great American. We lost Tony this 
last weekend, and it's a tremendous loss for his family, for his 
colleagues and indeed, for the Nation.
  It's also a great loss for humanity at large. Since Tony lost his 
battle with cancer on July 12, many Americans have heard stories about 
his wit, his humor, and his devotion to his family. I have a story of 
my own that I would like to share about Tony, a story that shows that 
Tony was very much a man of his word.
  Mr. Speaker, there are certain privileges that come with being a 
servant here in the people's House. For me, one of those privileges is 
from time to time being able to go to 1600 Pennsylvania

[[Page H6652]]

Avenue. Whether it is a meeting or a social event, a trip to the White 
House is always a big deal. It's always exciting.
  It was on one of those trips to the White House that I had the great 
fortune to meet Tony Snow. I didn't set out to meet Tony Snow that day. 
It happened because I had something that I had been asked to share with 
the President. It was a letter. It was a letter brought back by a 
soldier from Iraq. It was a letter that was handwritten by an Iraqi 
woman. It was a letter that was taken to this soldier early one summer 
Iraqi morning, the heat, the dust, the barriers, the wire; and this 
woman made her way up to the checkpoint and handed this letter to the 
soldier and said, Can you get this to President Bush?
  The soldier lived in my district back in north Texas. So after he 
came home, he brought the letter with him, and he was determined to get 
it to the President. And he did what anyone else would do with a letter 
to get to the President; he brought it to the town hall where his 
congressman was speaking and handed me the letter in front of a great 
number of people and said, ``Can you please help me get this letter to 
the President?'' Of course I said I would. But I didn't really know how 
I was going to do that and brought the letter back to Washington.
  I worked with the White House congressional liaison, but I wasn't 
really getting the letter to where it needed to be. So we had the White 
House picnic scheduled, and at the last minute, I put the letter in my 
pocket. I said, Well, if I see the President, I will hand the letter to 
him personally. But as is usually the case, you go to one of these 
events and the President is absolutely mobbed by people, and I honestly 
just didn't think I could get through the swarm of individuals that 
were lining up to have their picture made with the President.
  So I turned around, and there was Tony Snow. I didn't know Tony, but 
I walked up to him and struck up a conversation. And he was very happy 
to oblige. He was warm, he was witty, certainly very, very easy to talk 
with. He was a larger-than-life press person, a pundit, a press 
secretary, having just a pleasant and regular conversation with a very 
freshman congressman from Texas.
  It dawned on me that day that Tony might be the right person to whom 
to give this letter to take to the President. I asked him. I said, I 
have a letter that a soldier asked me to deliver to the President that 
was given to him by a woman in Iraq. Do you think you can help me? He 
said of course he would take the letter, and he'd be happy to see that 
it got into the hands of the President.
  Now, that was the White House picnic in June. Many, many months went 
by, many, many weeks went by, a couple of months went by. I didn't hear 
anything, and I really wondered what had happened to that letter, if it 
had ever gotten to where it was intended to go.
  And then at another event right at the start of school in September 
back in my district, the same soldier came up to me at a Chamber of 
Commerce breakfast. Again, a lot of people around, and very excitedly 
said, ``I just want you to know what you have meant to me getting my 
letter to the President.'' And I was somewhat taken aback because I 
didn't know the President received the letter. He said, Oh, yes. They 
called me from the White House. They identified themselves. At first I 
thought it was some of my buddies that were kidding with me. But in 
fact the letter had gotten to the White House. The President called me 
and thanked me for it. In the letter, the woman had thanked the 
President for everything he had done for the Iraqi people and said she 
was praying for him every day, and the President was deeply touched by 
the woman's words.
  Now, Tony Snow did not have to take that letter from me that day. He 
didn't have to deliver it to his boss. He didn't have to take it to the 
President. But that's just the kind of person he was: honest, decent, 
and a man of his word at all times.
  Well, certainly for me it was a great honor for me to meet Tony Snow 
that day. Certainly the country again mourns his loss, and I just 
wanted to bring to the floor this evening one of the other stories of 
what a great American Tony was and how much, as a country, we will miss 
him and honor his memory.

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