[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 91 (Thursday, May 25, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H4595-H4597]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              MEMORIAL DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mast) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.


                             General Leave

  Mr. MAST. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks 
and include extraneous materials on the subject of my Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Florida?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. MAST. Mr. Speaker, I rise on the heels of Memorial Day to discuss 
what we must learn from those we specifically remember on this and 
every Memorial Day going forward.
  All among us, every single person in this Chamber, every single 
person that visits here, we all have those days of the year where the 
history that is buried down deep inside of us is stirred up for 
whatever reason that may be. For some of us maybe it is that we lost a 
loved one right around Christmas and now we can't get through the 
holidays without remembering that person each year and the ways in 
which that person touched our life.

  Maybe for others it was right around your birthday when you lost a 
loved one or somebody passed, and on each year on the celebration of 
your own life, you find yourself remembering the loss of that life, the 
loss of that friend.
  Maybe for you that history is buried down inside and gets stirred up 
because of a certain smell in the air that brings you back to a time 
and place in your life. It can be hearing a special song that had 
meaning and somehow connected that person to you.
  For others, maybe it is driving past a certain restaurant or an 
intersection or a park that really weighs heavily on your heart.
  I find those feelings each and every day as I look down at my wrist 
and I read these bracelets with the names of friends who left this 
world in the most honorable way that any person can: in defense of our 
Nation.
  Men like Army Ranger Medic Jonathan Peney. On his fourth tour in 
Afghanistan, he died on June 1, 2010, from wounds that he sustained 
while giving medical aid to another wounded Ranger. He was only 22 
years old. When I speak to his mother, I know just how much she misses 
him.
  Or Army Sergeant Justin Allen. He was killed on July 18, 2010. I can 
remember the last thing that I said to him. I remember the mission 
vividly that we were on, and I remember the Rangers who spoke about him 
the next day on the flight line as we sent him home.
  I remember Bradley Rappuhn and Andrew Nicol and the compound that we 
were assaulting when they passed.
  You know, for me and many others across this Nation, the day that 
stands out above all for us is a day that is just a few days from now. 
It is Memorial Day, the day that America has specifically set aside to 
remember the men and women that relinquished their life while serving 
in the United States Armed Forces. And it rests as the day that is most 
heavy on our hearts.
  This day is so heavy on my heart that, to my shame, one year I asked 
my wife, Brianna, that she and our children, Magnum and Maverick, not 
accompany me to the cemetery that I was going to be speaking at that 
Memorial Day. I asked that she stay at home with our two little boys.
  I made that request because I didn't want my little boys to have to 
see me in pain. And at that point in life, I just wasn't strong enough. 
I wasn't strong enough to tell them why their daddy had tears or was 
crying on that day.
  And today I try to be more courageous, and I try to tell my boys why 
I have tears on that and every Memorial Day. And whenever I hear the 
slow solemn hum of taps, whether it is on Memorial Day or Veterans Day 
or in the presence of some newly fallen comrade or playing on a TV in 
the background, I have to pause and wipe my eyes and regain my 
composure.
  Or when I hear that cold crack of a 21-gun salute, I do find myself 
too numb to the sound of gunfire to be startled by it, but it still 
reverberates to my core as though I was struck by the shots myself. 
That is the pain that I feel.
  You know, those little boys of mine, they need to know that there 
were brave men and brave women who showed strength and courage and 
patriotism with every fiber of their being on their behalf so that they 
may live free. That they may live free.
  Think about that. They served never thinking about personal gain or 
personal sacrifice, but thinking about their personal contribution to 
our Nation. And as we find ourselves on the heels of Memorial Day, I 
believe every Member of this House, every Member of Congress, must 
reflect on every tear shed across this Nation, every empty seat at 
every dinner table, every name etched onto a piece of stone that is for 
a son or daughter of America who gave everything for the freedom and 
the life of others.
  We in this Chamber must think daily about all the men and women who 
have fought and died for this cause, this Nation that they loved more 
than their own breath.
  I think about those that I knew personally, those that I have heard 
about. I think about those who came long before me. And I ask myself 
every single day: Would they be proud of the work that we do in this 
Chamber, how we represent our Nation and the values that they fought 
for that they gave their life for? Would they want us as a member of 
their team?
  I used to tell folks that, to date, in our theaters of war, I have 
lost 67 close friends. That used to be true. But the reality is I no 
longer know how many friends I have lost. I have stopped counting. What 
I know is that we must live the way that they lived every day: without 
excuse, without regret. Full throttle, as one of my friends used to 
say.
  For some of them, their blood has stained my own uniform. Some of 
them I lost simply being on the same mission. And some were on other 
missions

[[Page H4596]]

in other places around the world. And each year on Memorial Day and 
many other days, I think most often of one of my friends specifically, 
Ranger Sergeant First Class Lance Vogeler, who, after four tours in 
Iraq and eight tours in Afghanistan, made the ultimate sacrifice on 
October 1, 2010, while in battle just a few short days after my own 
injury.
  I know that he is deeply missed by me and all of his friends, and 
certainly by his wife and his two children that he left behind. You 
know, I can remember him telling me about them one night as we were in 
Afghanistan and he and I sat against a fence in the dark of night 
waiting for a helicopter to come and pick us up. I can remember him 
telling me about his family. I wasn't there when he passed, but I am 
told that his last words were of his wife and of his children.
  I think often if he would be proud of the way that this place 
conducts itself. He is the definition of a hero. He is exactly what 
Memorial Day honors. And knowing him, I know that none of us here can 
measure up, but I want to know that we honor him and every other hero 
who is remembered officially in just a few days with our actions in 
here each and every day. We owe it to men like him to fight to make 
America the strongest version of itself that it could ever be.

  I want us to honor each of those close friends that I have lost in 
our theaters of war and every other who has traded their life for our 
freedom, for our America, with their own actions on each day.
  As we approach Memorial Day, I always remember well a lot of things 
about those friends. I remember their smiles. And I remember the jokes 
that we would play on each other. I can remember hiding somebody's gear 
or adding a big rock into their pack without them knowing, just to 
weigh it down, make them sweat a little bit more. And I can remember 
where they were from. I can remember the time that we spent training 
together, shooting together, jumping out of aircraft together, roping 
from helicopters together, blowing things up together. I can remember 
their hobbies, and I can remember their plans for what they wanted to 
do whenever they returned home. I can remember the pictures that they 
themselves would carry in their breast pocket of the ones that they 
loved most, just like the one that I would carry of my wife, Brianna, 
and our one son that I had at that time. I can remember their 
lifesaving actions on the battlefield. I can remember their acts of 
valor, and I can remember the way that we each confidently put our 
lives in each other's hands.

                              {time}  1230

  I remember some who are no longer with us today who placed themselves 
in the line of fire to carry me from the battlefield that I not become 
a casualty of war. I can remember their loyalty and their determination 
and their grit, and, for some of them, I can remember their last 
breaths. I can remember saluting their casket with the most beautiful 
flag that I have ever seen draped gracefully across it, and I can 
remember seeing that flag folded and handed to those whose pictures 
they had been carrying. I can remember seeing the way that those family 
members would cling to that flag.
  As I remember these moments, I want to see, more than anything, that 
the way we, here in the House of Representatives, conduct ourselves 
honors the way those who gave the last beat of their heart conducted 
themselves on our behalf. If statues of those men and women surrounded 
our floor here, would they look onto each of us each day and would they 
swell with pride over our service, or would their hearts sink? Would 
they turn away and be ashamed? Would they look on and be proud?
  The goal of American heroes has always been country first, themselves 
second. They knew, those who gave on behalf of this place, that the 
establishment of this country, the maintenance of America, its safety, 
the protection of each and every citizen is not a product of chance. It 
is not a product of luck. It is not a product of indifference. So they 
stood between every American and evil with purpose and resolve 
regardless of what it was going to cost them.
  They knew the job was never easy, it was never safe, it was always 
dangerous, and it was almost always deadly. While they may have 
disagreed on how to conduct a mission, I know they never wished for the 
failure of their comrade or, for that matter, the failure of any 
American ever. They certainly never wished for the failure of the 
leaders of our Nation.
  My office is in the Rayburn House Office Building, and in one of our 
entrances is the name of each who has fallen in the war on terror 
listed year by year. All of those friends of mine are listed there. 
When I see them, I stop, and I think about them every single time. I 
wish that the name of every single American who has fallen well in 
defense of our Nation adorned each and every wall of this Chamber in 
here, as it does in my office building, that we would look on each time 
we speak on this floor and question ourselves as to whether our motives 
are as pure as their motives were.
  Every American child, every adult, every man and woman has the 
limitless opportunities to enjoy their life, to become whatever it is 
in the world they want to be, to achieve whatever they have the courage 
to attempt and the determination and the fortitude to spend themselves 
in fully to accomplish. That limitless opportunity each citizen has and 
each of us in here in the House is afforded has been paid for with the 
blood and the spirit of men and women who traded their own life to 
fulfill an oath to our great Nation.
  Their oath was the same that we as Members of Congress vow to 
fulfill: to support and defend the Constitution of the United States 
against all enemies, foreign and domestic; to bear true faith and 
allegiance to the same; to take that obligation freely, without any 
mental reservation or purpose of evasion, so help us God.
  And though we take that same oath, I know we do not always show the 
same commitment. Those heroes never thought about what was easy or 
popular to masses or what they would get out of their actions. It was 
not reelection on the line for them. It was their life on the line, and 
they gave it freely.
  As I think about Memorial Day, I wish we could, daily, see every 
heroic name across our walls here and recall the harrowing stories of 
the Second World War and the over 400,000 U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy, 
Marine, Coastguardsman, and each and every Merchant Marine who fought 
and died in Europe and in the Pacific and in Africa for the freedom of 
the entire world from being ruled by an evil and intolerant empire. 
They died in places named Ardennes Forest and Midway and Guadalcanal.
  I wish we thought about each vote we took and looked at the names of 
our over 36,000 servicemembers who would never return home from the 
frozen mud of Korea and think is that what they fought for at the 
Chosin Reservoir. I wish we could recount the names and the stories of 
the over 58,000 servicemembers who died in combat or while captured or 
who went through torture and starvation before giving their life or 
while missing as a part of the Vietnam war in places like Khe Sanh and 
Saigon.
  I wish we saw the names of the servicemembers who put their country 
first and themselves second while serving in the Dominican Republic or 
Iran or El Salvador or Beirut or Grenada or Panama or the Persian Gulf 
as we thought about what we will say when we are given the chance to 
speak on this floor and if our words would be worth even one second of 
their life.
  I wish we could think about the Delta operators or the Army Rangers 
or the Black Hawk pilots who gave it all in the dusty sands of Somalia, 
Medal of Honor recipients like Master Sergeant Gary Gordon and Sergeant 
First Class Randall Shughart, who volunteered to go into a situation 
that they knew would claim their life in order to save their fellow 
fighters. They were devoted to their duty, and their duty was to their 
brothers and to their country.
  Or those who fought and died in Bosnia and Kosovo and on the USS 
Cole, and all those who fought in places that we may never know because 
of threats to us that we never even knew existed, we need to ask if 
they would give the last beat of their heart for the way in which we 
legislate our country.

[[Page H4597]]

  Most personally for me, I would think deeply on the thousands of 
soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, coastguardsmen who defended this 
country with the last beat of their heart in a place like Iraq or 
Afghanistan or Syria, would they be proud. These were the men and women 
who I served alongside, men and women who served selflessly and 
repeatedly year after year, knowing full well the hazards of their 
profession.
  I couldn't be more proud than to have the few moments that I did with 
the best and the most honorable that our Nation has ever produced, who 
sacrificed their whole self because it was best for the men and women 
to their left and to their right in battle, because it was best for the 
freedom and the liberty and the security of every person. I don't know 
how to ever make the pain of their loss go away. I do know how to honor 
them. We do it with the way that we live each day going forward that 
they do not have the opportunity to live.

  They would want every American to cherish the gift of freedom that 
they have been given by God, which was defended by those angels whose 
names are now etched in row after row of plain white markers in 
Arlington National Cemetery. They would want us all to live exactly as 
they lived: with no regrets, loving this country more than we loved 
ourselves, fighting as hard as they fought, never quitting, never 
giving up. We owe it to them to do so, to not ask ourselves what we can 
take for ourselves, but to ask what we, ourselves, can give.
  I want my kids to grow up honoring these men and these women who have 
sacrificed. I want my young boys to know that they get to give me a hug 
or a smile, but there are men and women who are willing to risk never 
having one more of those from their own families, and I want them to 
live the way that those heroes lived. I want my children to know it is 
honorable to have the courage to mourn them, and I want them to have 
the resolve to not squander the opportunities which have been paid for 
with the selfless blood of every American warrior.
  I get grief in my heart when I think of all those who have gone in 
defense of our flag, but I also think about each of the great warriors 
that they were, and I smile because there can be no more honorable way 
to leave this world than in a pile of brass while fighting for the 
greatest nation ever to be established on the face of this Earth.
  We here need to think of the thousands who gave their lives 
selflessly, without expectation of anything in return, true selfless 
servants serving simply to do what was best for the United States of 
America. Some were infantrymen; some were mortarmen; some were 
engineers or tankers or something else. They were men and women who, 
through the ages, created the reputation and the legacy and the 
tradition that made me say: ``That is what I want to be. That is how I 
want to serve. That is how I want to help.''
  Here, we must learn from those who we think about most on Memorial 
Day. We need to look at them and their names and their lives and their 
stories and their sacrifice and demand the same thing out of ourselves. 
They pushed through the cold. They pushed through the snow. They pushed 
without adequate supplies. They fought back tanks. They always pushed 
forward in the face of bombarding artillery. They pushed so hard that 
their weapon would overheat. They pushed through trench foot. They did 
it with fixed bayonets, which they used to defend their own foxholes 
and then used them to carve our enemy out of their foxholes. They 
stayed in the fight when they were wounded, even though it would 
certainly mean a bitter end that was very far from home.
  They did not stop because they were tired. They did not stop because 
they were exhausted or freezing or hungry. They did it even though they 
had to sleep on the ground or sleep in the field or sometimes never 
sleep at all. They only stopped when the job was done. They only 
stopped when the mission was accomplished. This is the grit with which 
Americans have always defended America.
  We have taken that same oath in this House, and American heroes, they 
set the precedent for every generation about how to do that job. To do 
it for them was not just a job or a paycheck, it was a calling. It was 
a calling that few have the stomach to undertake and that, certainly, 
even fewer still are capable of ever doing. It requires uncommon 
characteristics such as courage and valor and selflessness.
  Today those words are thrown around very lightly by many, but those 
we remember on Memorial Day have actually lived and breathed the 
definition of these characteristics.
  They did it by flying aircraft or driving armored vehicles. They did 
it by setting sail with the most powerful fleet ever seen on our seas. 
They did it by yoking their bodies with a rifle or a pistol, by 
carrying hundreds of rounds of ammunition and hundreds of pounds of 
gear, wearing a helmet and explosives, carrying everything that they 
required to save the life of another servicemember as well as 
everything that they needed to survive for days or months on end.
  They did it while being targeted by snipers, while having bombs or 
mortars or grenades hurled at them, while having an RPG fired at them. 
They did it while walking in fields of mines and improvised explosive 
devices. They did it by carrying that load for miles and days across 
mountains, across rolling hills, and through fields and forests and 
rivers.
  They did it while carrying letters for their friends, which they 
promised to deliver to their family should anything ever happen to 
them. They did it while missing births and birthdays and ball games and 
bath times and holidays and every other good time that they missed with 
their families. They did it in the face of mortal combat. They did it 
while holding both the lives of their friends and the lives of our 
enemies in their hands.
  We honor those we remember who are not with us today by taking no 
charge more seriously than honoring their sacrifice with the lives that 
we now live. What those heroes have done in defense of our Nation can 
never be taken away from them. We must remember that so, too, what we 
do here in defense cannot be taken away by the years that pass if we 
endeavor to be warriors, willing to defend America at any and all 
costs.
  Those we remember are a testament to the importance of the values and 
ideals sewn into the fabric of our Nation, the absolutes. And all I can 
say is: Thank God for men and women like that, for creating such 
patriots for us to revere as the standard by which all other Americans 
should serve America.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________