[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 147 (Friday, November 16, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1790]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     RECOGNIZING COLONEL CLARENCE E. ``BUD'' ANDERSON (USAF, RET.)

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. TOM McCLINTOCK

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, November 16, 2012

  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, we are met here today on several items 
of important business.
  First, we are here to dedicate Col. Bud Anderson Way as a permanent 
and daily reminder to all of us how honored our community is to be the 
home of Bud Anderson.
  But more importantly, we name this street after Bud Anderson as a 
lesson to succeeding generations in matters of courage and sacrifice 
and duty and patriotism, in the hope and expectation that these 
generations will find inspiration and instruction in Col. Anderson's 
life story.
  He grew up in the little California town of Newcastle, in the 1920's 
and 30's--an age and a place where uniquely American values of 
individual responsibility, self-reliance, love of liberty, sense of 
duty, and love of country were very real, very strong, and inculcated 
into the very souls of America's greatest generation.
  When our nation, and all that it stood for, came under attack by 
foreign tyrants, that Greatest Generation knew instantly what was at 
stake and could see clearly what had to be done.
  President Roosevelt sounded the clarion call with these words: ``No 
matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, 
the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to 
absolute victory.''
  The whole might and fury of the nation was committed to the cause, 
and from little towns like Newcastle, courageous young men like Bud 
Anderson stepped forward--indeed, rushed forward--to defend not only 
our country, but what Lincoln had called the last best hope of mankind.
  Today, it is hard to imagine a time when an attack on our country was 
met with the complete and total resolve of the entire nation--where 
every citizen set aside their daily lives and indeed devoted themselves 
to, ``absolute victory.'' Because people like Bud Anderson did just 
that, 3\1/2\ years later, the enemies of our nation had been utterly 
vanquished.
  Bud Anderson shot down more than 16 German fighters in 116 combat 
missions. But what he really did was far more important. At great 
personal risk, he saved countless American bomber crews, making it 
possible to deliver justice to what Churchill called the ``foulest and 
most soul-destroying tyranny in the history of the human race,'' and 
ultimately to fulfill the Liberty Bell's proud mandate from Leviticus: 
``to proclaim liberty throughout all the land and unto all the 
inhabitants thereof.''
  That's why we're really here. Not just to honor Bud Anderson. Lincoln 
was right that there's no way that we can add or detract from the honor 
that his deeds already earned him.
  We're really here because we want to know that in this nation there 
once existed an American spirit that compelled us to recognize moral 
imperatives, to destroy absolute evil with absolute victory, and to 
celebrate American exceptionalism without reservation or hesitation.
  We have in Bud Anderson a great example of these virtues, a great 
reminder that they are real, and a great teacher from whom we can 
recover these virtues in a world that is once again piled high with 
difficulties at home and abroad.
  That's why we're naming this road in his honor--because we are 
desperately searching for the qualities that defined his deeds and his 
times and we have found in him a guide back to America's greatness.
  Every person who travels this road, and who reflects on the story of 
Bud Anderson and his times, who learns that story and learns it well, 
will know that it is a road that can take us to better and brighter 
days ahead.

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