[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 8 (Wednesday, January 14, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E87-E88]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO LEE VAN VOORHIS

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JAMES P. McGOVERN

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, January 14, 2009

  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Lee Van 
Voorhis, a World War II veteran living at the New Horizons facility in 
Marlborough, MA. Mr. Van Voorhis recently wrote an essay calling for 
the establishment of a Department of Peace. I was honored to visit with 
Mr. Van Voorhis on January 12. Below is a story about Mr. Van Voorhis 
from the Marlborough Enterprise, which includes a copy of his 
remarkable essay.

             World War II Vet Urges ``Secretary of Peace''

                            (By Mary Wenzel)

       Marlborough.--World War II was underway and a poster, 
     hanging in the Montclair, N.J., Post Office, calling for 
     50,000 pilots, was meant to catch the attention of young men.
       And it did.
       ``As a teenager, flying a plane seemed like an exciting 
     kind of thing to do,'' said Lee Van Voorhis, a senior at the 
     local high school, who during his junior year had been an air 
     raid warden for his neighborhood.
       Like many of the young men of his generation, Van Voorhis 
     signed up for the flight training program and became a pilot 
     for the B-25 medium bomber.
       ``It was the work horse of the Army Air Corps,'' said Van 
     Voorhis who served from June 1943 to November 1945.
       ``My grandfather was in the Civil War, my father in World 
     War I and I was in World War II,'' reminisced Van Voorhis who 
     also saw a son serve in Vietnam.
       ``I remember very distinctly my father being very emotional 
     about my going off to war,'' said Van Voorhis, ``because he 
     thought that when they fought World War I, it was the war to 
     end all wars, and he was so upset because he saw his son 
     going off to a second World War.''
       However, for this pilot, a Second Lieutenant, United States 
     Army Air Corps, his service would be short lived.
       ``The war was winding down,'' he said, ``and there were 
     surplus pilots.''
       For Van Voorhis and many of his fellow servicemen, it was 
     off to college on the GI Bill when he entered Dartmouth 
     College in Hanover, New Hampshire.
       ``When I was in college, my philosophy professor was 
     dynamic, always asking us questions,'' explained Van Voorhis.
       In spite of a half century since he sat in that classroom, 
     Van Voorhis remembers this professor pacing up and down and 
     asking the students, half of whom were GIs, a question that 
     they couldn't answer, ``What's the cause of war?''
       ``You're GIs and you fought the greatest war the world has 
     ever known and you don't know the cause,'' the professor said 
     with great passion.
       ``It's a lack of communications,'' the professor stated 
     answering his own question. ``What should you do when two 
     countries are having problems getting along with each other? 
     Send 100 ambassadors, send 10,000 ambassadors.''
       Van Voorhis still remembers the final exam for this 
     philosophy class and the blue book to be filled with the 
     answer to only one question, ``What would you do when two 
     countries are not getting along well and explain in detail.''
       ``I had an hour to answer the question,'' said Van Voorhis. 
     ``I poured sweat because I tried so hard to think of all the 
     things that you could do following his (the professor) idea 
     of communications.''
       That was in 1948 and now in 2008, 60 years later, Van 
     Voorhis has found a way to express himself in a way that he 
     didn't know he had so many years ago.
       Nena Van Voorhis, Lee's wife of 61 years, signed up for a 
     Creative Writing Class that had begun at New Horizons, off 
     Hemenway Street, where the couple reside.

[[Page E88]]

       ``I love this class. It keeps me writing and thinking,'' 
     said Nena Van Voorhis, who urged her husband to join her.
       Reluctantly Lee Van Voorhis went to the class, taught by 
     Gloria Goostray, and in a short time found the class to be an 
     exciting thing.
       ``This class is fantastic. You realize you have a mind 
     that's full of ideas,'' he explained. Van Voorhis had finally 
     found a way of putting into words his thoughts about that 
     question posed to him six decades ago.
       ``I have always loved the Robert Frost poem, ``The Road Not 
     Taken,'' said Van Voorhis.
       ``We all pray for peace,'' explained Van Voorhis, ``but the 
     road to peace, like I described here, you have to work at it. 
     I mean a very specific effort as much as you have to work on 
     your defenses.''
       Nena and Lee Van Voorhis are the parents of four, three 
     sons and one daughter, and the grandparents of 12.
       Following is an essay Van Voorhis wrote for the class that 
     is included in a book called ``Writings from the Heart,'' a 
     collection of short stories published by the 2007-2008 
     Creative Writing Class.

                           The Road Not Taken

                           (By Robert Frost)

     ``I shall be telling this with a sigh
     Somewhere ages and ages hence
     Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
     I took the one less traveled by.
     And that has made all the difference.''

       So it has been through human history the most traveled road 
     has been the road to war. Every nation carefully records all 
     its wars and usually marks them with various memorials, 
     statues, and honors for all the veterans.
       The road less traveled leads to peace. This is desired by 
     everyone worldwide. We all want to raise our children in 
     peace. Going on the road to war is easy. My country is right 
     and your country is doing something wrong or starting open 
     conflict in some disputed area then the threatening words 
     start escalating. Each side putting out aggressive words like 
     ``you need to be punished'' or ``face sanctions'' or calling 
     them ``an axis of evil.'' Our people hate you and you hate 
     us. Now each country believes the other country is evil and 
     we must settle our differences with war.
       ``The road less traveled by'' is the road to peace. This 
     improves your communication with other countries, then we 
     better understand the real root of each other's concerns and 
     will be more compassionate and try to find common ground for 
     peaceful solutions. Going on the road to war means we 
     immediately start thinking of our military defenses and start 
     cutting communications with the country we disagree with.
       Ping-pong games opened China for President Nixon. The N.Y. 
     Philharmonic's visit to N. Korea gave us the opportunity to 
     try to negotiate with N. Korea. As Robert Frost said about 
     the road taken, ``I, I took the one less traveled by and that 
     has made all the difference.''
       We must think of every possible way to improve our 
     communication with the countries we have problems with. How 
     about such things as starting a worldwide Art Olympics in 
     which there would be various themes either taking or on the 
     road to peace with various categories for children and 
     adults?
       To stimulate these ideas helping peace, how about a 
     Secretary of Peace in our President's cabinet, charged with 
     nothing but encouraging ideas and actions for peace. (The 
     Secretary of State's job is charged with protecting American 
     interests, and official dealings with foreign countries 
     only.)
       As Robert Frost said about having taken the road less 
     traveled ``and that has made all the difference.''
       So let's go for the road less traveled--Peace will make all 
     the difference.

                          ____________________