[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 44 (Thursday, March 12, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3039-S3041]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       HONORING OUR ARMED FORCES


                     Sergeant William Patrick Rudd

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, one of America's bravest soldiers has 
fallen, so I rise to speak about SGT William Patrick Rudd of 
Madisonville, KY. On October 5, 2008, Sergeant Rudd tragically died of 
the wounds sustained during a ground assault raid on senior leaders of 
al-Qaida in Mosul, Iraq. He was 27 years old.
  Sergeant Rudd was an Army Ranger on his eighth deployment in support 
of the war on terror. He had previously served five tours in Iraq and 
two in Afghanistan.
  For his many acts of bravery over years of service, he received 
several medals, awards, and decorations, including the Kentucky Medal 
for Freedom, three Army Achievement Medals, the Army Commendation 
Medal, the Joint Service Commendation Medal, the Meritorious Service 
Medal, the Purple Heart, and the Bronze Star Medal.
  Army Rangers are among the most elite members of our fighting forces. 
They undergo grueling training to wear the honored Ranger Tab on their 
sleeves. For Sergeant Rudd it was the life he always wanted.
  ``I really enjoy what I'm doing and I think I'm really good at it,'' 
Sergeant Rudd told his friend and fellow Ranger, SSG Brett Krueger. 
This was just a few days before his death. ``I told him he was,'' Staff 
Sergeant Krueger remembers.
  Sergeant Rudd said, ``And I don't picture myself doing anything else 
as successful and as comfortable as what I do now.''
  Sergeant Rudd's parents also remember their son--who went by his 
middle name, Patrick--as a young man firmly dedicated to his fellow 
Rangers and the cause they fight for.
  ``He died for the country,'' says William Rudd, Patrick's dad. ``He 
loved the Army Rangers. He loved his men. . . . He didn't join for 
himself. You might say he joined for everyone else over here.''
  Patrick's mother, Pamela Coakley, also remembers her son's sure sense 
that he was on the right path. ``One thing he told me, if this ever 
happened . . . was just to know that he died happy and proud,'' she 
says. ``And that's what stuck with me, because those big brown eyes 
looked into me. I know he was serious.''
  Pamela also remembers Patrick's fascination since he was young with 
the men and women who fight on the side of the good guys. ``CIA, FBI, 
ever since he was a little boy growing up. . . . U.S. Marshals . . . 
his cousin was a State trooper, and he always wanted to be in that 
field,'' she says.
  Young Patrick also loved the outdoors, camping, and riding horses. In 
fact, the family owned horses and Pamela remembers a time when one of 
hers was injured. She feared the horse would not survive. But 12-year-
old Patrick gave the horse shots, cleaned its wounds, and it lived. 
``He was always my little man,'' Pamela says. ``He was always my son, 
but really the man of the house, too.''
  Patrick also looked after his sister, Elizabeth Lam, and that 
included sending a message to her would-be boyfriends. ``On my first 
date, he sat on the front porch with a shotgun,'' Elizabeth said, ``on 
my very first date.''
  Patrick graduated from Madisonville-North Hopkins High School in 1999 
and then worked at White Hydraulics in Hopkinsville, after which he

[[Page S3040]]

joined the Army in October of 2003. ``He had spent two years thinking 
about it, knowing that he needed a different direction in his life and 
wanting to defend our country,'' Patrick's dad, William, recalls. ``I'm 
pretty sure he had his mind made up he wanted to be a Ranger when he 
went through Basic,'' adds Patrick's stepbrother, Josh Renfro.
  Assigned to B Company, 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, based out 
of Fort Benning, GA, Patrick became a vital part of his Ranger team. 
Because he was a NASCAR fan and his favorite driver was Ricky Rudd, his 
fellow Rangers gave him the nickname ``Ricky.''
  ``He was a good-hearted person who loved life,'' said SSG Brett 
Krueger. ``You could never catch him on a bad day. . . . everyone loved 
him dearly. . . . A lot of younger guys looked up to him.''
  SGT Dusty Harrell explains why. ``He spent countless hours passing 
down knowledge to younger soldiers, to help them be successful.''
  Jack Roush, owner of some of NASCAR's most successful teams, heard of 
the loss of Sergeant Rudd. To honor the Ranger and NASCAR fan, he had a 
decal of Patrick's name placed on David Ragan's No. 6 car during a race 
in Atlanta.
  At the same time, the Atlanta Motor Speedway donated 200 tickets to 
members of Patrick's unit to attend the race. Patrick and the other 
Rangers became close friends who spent time together in and out of 
uniform. Sergeant Harrell remembers a time when he and Patrick went 
fishing together in Georgia, and he learned that Patrick, a brave Army 
Ranger, was afraid of snakes. Sergeant Harrell got a bite on his line 
and reeled it in to find a water moccasin on the hook. By the time he 
turned around to share a reaction with his friend, ``Ricky was already 
up the hill.''
  Staff Sergeant Krueger, Sergeant Harrell, and more of Patrick's 
fellow soldiers came to Madisonville to share their memories of Patrick 
with his family. After speaking with them, Pamela said, ``It made me 
feel like I still had sons.''
  After the loss of a brave young soldier such as Patrick Rudd, we must 
keep his loved ones foremost in our minds. We are thinking today of his 
mother Pamela Coakley; his father William Rudd; his stepmother Barbara 
Rudd; his sister Elizabeth Lam; his stepbrother Josh Renfro; his 
grandparents Judy and Bennie Hancock; and many other beloved family 
members and friends.
  Pamela says she has faith she will see her son again someday. For 
now, she has 27 years' worth of cherished memories, and in many of them 
Patrick is still her little man, defender of his sister's honor, and 
doctor to horses.
  ``I don't envision the war stuff,'' Pamela says. ``I see Patrick 
sitting on the kitchen counter. I see him sitting down by the creek or 
laying on the bed with his dog Harley. That's what I see.''
  I know the entire Senate rises with me to say we honor SGT William 
Patrick Rudd for his service, and we will forever remain reverent of 
his enormous sacrifice on behalf of our Nation.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that 
the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Madam President, I rise today to express my 
support for the bipartisan bill introduced earlier this week by my 
colleague Senator Bingaman, called the Federal Land Assistance 
Management Enhancement Act, or the FLAME Act, S. 561. Senator Bingaman 
was joined by my colleagues: Senators Murkowski, Boxer, Cantwell, 
Johnson, Murray, Tester, Tom Udall, and Wyden as cosponsors. I wish to 
add my support as a cosponsor as well.
  Like many States from coast to coast, my home State of Colorado 
features expansive areas of wildland that are increasingly at risk of 
wildfire. Periods of drought continue to raise the possibility of 
wildfires in America, while in Colorado and throughout the mountain 
West, the epidemic of bark beetle infestation has compounded our risk 
of wildfire. In 2008, more than 5.1 million acres of land nationwide 
burned, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. In 2006 and 
2007, more than 9 million acres burned, and more than 8 million acres 
burned in 2004 and 2005. The costs associated with these fires are 
large and increasing. To a large degree, these costs occur because 
fires are encroaching ever closer to our communities. These fires 
require more aggressive suppression efforts because of the risks to 
lives and property.
  But unfortunately, the Federal lands agencies--especially the Forest 
Service--do not have the resources they need to fight these fires. They 
must resort to raiding funds from other important programs within these 
agencies, such as trails and road maintenance, recreation management 
and, especially important, preventive fuels treatment that could help 
reduce fires, or at least lessen their severity and costs when the 
wildfires occur.
  For example: last year, the Forest Service had $1.2 billion budgeted 
for fire suppression, but the agency had to transfer at least $400 
million from other programs when that funding fell short. In August of 
last year, Forest Service Chief Gail Kimbell sent out an interagency 
memo asking the staff to find ways to come up with extra money. The 
extra money being sent off to these accounts forced the closure of some 
recreation areas, caused some contract obligations to go unmet, and 
canceled construction, research, and natural resource work.
  Later, Congress approved $610 million for the Forest Service in 
emergency Federal firefighting funding, restoring some of those 
transfers. Nonetheless, that work had gone undone when it was necessary 
for it to be done.
  Making matters worse is the fact that the Forest Service budget has 
historically declined overall. The Department of Interior and Forest 
Service each maintain multibillion dollar deferred maintenance backlogs 
and are having to scale back some of their services. As is often 
pointed out, the Forest Service now dedicates upwards of half of its 
entire budget for emergency fire suppression activities.
  We can't keep funding firefighting efforts in this manner. We have to 
find a better approach, so we do not continue to borrow money intended 
for other important missions. Also, we must move forward with efforts 
that allow us to reduce wildfire threats at the front end.
  The FLAME Act would do just that. It would set up a separate fund 
that agencies can draw upon to augment firefighting costs. In so doing, 
we can help the agencies avoid drawing down funds in other programs and 
provide additional funds when we face an especially intense and 
expensive fire season. I strongly support the creation of a Federal 
fund designated solely for catastrophic emergency wildland fire 
suppression activities, which is what this bill does.
  Equally important, in my view, is a provision in the FLAME Act 
calling for comprehensive wildland fire management strategies to best 
allocate fire management resources, assess risk levels for communities, 
and prioritize fuel reduction projects.
  For many of my constituents--as in the State of the Presiding 
officer, New York, as well--Federal and State wildlands are Colorado's 
greatest attribute, providing all manner of outdoor recreation and awe-
inspiring scenes of nature. Yet those same forested lands hold the 
potential for tragedy, as the threat of lost life and property due to 
wildfire grows. We currently employ a largely reactive wait-and-see 
approach to catastrophic wildland fires. The FLAME Act will help us 
shift to a more effective and proactive approach. I urge my colleagues 
to join me in supporting this bipartisan approach.
  Again, I thank Senator Bingaman for introducing this legislation. I 
look forward to working with him and our colleagues to bring this bill 
before the full Senate and press for its final passage.
  With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

[[Page S3041]]

  Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The Senator from Vermont is recognized.
  (The remarks of Mr. Sanders pertaining to the introduction of S. 582 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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