[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 86 (Wednesday, May 22, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H4112-H4115]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1745
                        IN HONOR OF JAMES WILKE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2019, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. FORTENBERRY. Madam Speaker, as we Nebraskans continue to recover 
as a State from the massive flooding, so many communities hit so hard, 
so many examples of neighbor helping neighbor, leadership capacity and 
qualities coming forward, people

[[Page H4113]]

pulling together around the ideal of ensuring that the communities have 
integrity, not of just response, but of recovery, one particular story 
of heroism has emerged that I would like to share.
  Mr. James Wilke, and he is pictured right here, was a farmer. He was 
a farmer from Columbus, Nebraska, near Columbus in Platte County. Mr. 
Wilke gave his life during the flood.
  What happened is he got a call from volunteer rescuers about someone 
who was stranded in a car fairly near his farm by a nearby creek. He 
jumped in his tractor without hesitation--and here he is pictured--and 
he sought to help the stranded motorists and the volunteers who were 
there assisting.
  When he got to the bridge that was over the creek, water had started 
to rush over it. The volunteers actually were helping guide him across 
the creek, and the bridge collapsed. Because he was in an enclosed cab, 
he couldn't escape.
  Frantically, the family and others helped search for him, and it 
wasn't until hours later that he was found a long way back up the 
creek, but actually near his home, near his farm. It was as though he 
was saying, ``It's okay. I am back.''
  I wrote a letter to President Trump recently asking the President to 
present Mr. James Wilke the Presidential Citizen's Medal, and, Madam 
Speaker, I would just like to read the letter that I wrote to the 
President:
  ``Dear Mr. President,
  ``It is my honor to nominate Mr. James Wilke of Columbus, Nebraska, 
for the Presidential Citizen's Medal. The Nation's second highest 
civilian award recognizes persons who have performed exemplary deeds or 
services for their country or fellow citizens.
  ``A 50-year-old Platte County farmer, Mr. Wilke is rightly being 
heralded as a hero by family, friends, and citizens across the 
Cornhusker State and the Nation. A husband, father, grandfather, and 
community leader, James lived to help others. He died attempting to 
rescue those in need during the catastrophic floods that hit Nebraska 
in mid-March.
  ``It surprised no one when, on March 14, James immediately responded 
to a call from volunteer first responders to help rescue a motorist 
stranded in the rising floodwaters of Knox Creek near his home. He 
didn't hesitate. After receiving the call, Wilke jumped into his John 
Deere 8100 tractor and headed north on Monastery Road, a route he had 
taken thousands of times before.
  ``As James approached the scene of the stranded motorist, he was 
confronted by raging water over the bridge that he needed to cross. 
Emergency responders already on the site tried to guide James and the 
tractor over the bridge, when it suddenly collapsed. The tractor 
plunged into the water with James inside.
  ``James perished in the accident. After a desperate search by 
neighbors, family, and friends, Wilke's body was recovered downstream 9 
hours later on a creek bed near his own farm.
  `` `He was generous with his time and giving,' said a friend. `. . . 
the kind of person that people don't think exist anymore. He would help 
anybody.'
  ``A friend of Mr. Wilke posted this tribute on social media. `James 
was not only a great all-around guy; he was a great family man and he 
was amazingly strong in his faith. . . . A true hero who wore a T-
shirt, blue jeans, work boots, and drove a John Deere tractor.'
  ``An online petition has been launched to get James Wilke the 
prestigious Presidential Citizen's Medal. One online commentator wrote: 
`While I don't know this man personally, he represents what Nebraska is 
all about: hard work and willingness to help, no matter the cost. To be 
a Nebraskan means, within your own hardships, you still give your all 
to help a complete stranger in need. It means coming together to help 
our neighbors two to three towns over because they have lost 
everything. James represents a Nebraskan, doing all that and more, by 
going above and beyond the call of civilian duty and paying the 
ultimate sacrifice. He shows the Nation that we can put aside our 
selfishness and our pride to help someone else.'
  ``Mr. President, I second these sentiments. I strongly support 
granting the Presidential Citizen's Medal to James Wilke, a good man, 
simply doing his duty, moved by courage, and motivated by love to help 
another.
  ``Thank you for your consideration.
  ``Sincerely, Jeff Fortenberry.''
  Something that is not mentioned in this letter is that the online 
petition to the President for James has reached tens of thousands of 
people, ordinary people hearing about it and simply wanting to do 
something to commend this finest example out of what has really been an 
attribute of the character of our State, neighbor helping neighbor, and 
this neighbor giving the ultimate sacrifice.


                    In Honor of Chief Standing Bear

  Mr. FORTENBERRY. Madam Speaker, I would like to turn my attention to 
an opportunity I had this morning before the Natural Resources 
Committee to actually talk about another Nebraskan who lived long ago, 
a Nebraskan who will soon adorn the Halls here. His statue will be 
placed in Statuary Hall right outside of these Halls. He was Ponca 
Chief Standing Bear.
  I was pleased to welcome Ms. Judi Gaiashkibos, the director of the 
Nebraska Indian Commission, who, with me, petitioned the Natural 
Resources Committee to begin a process by which we study the 
feasibility of a trail in Standing Bear's honor and in honor of the 
Ponca people and the hardships which they endured
  I began before the committee this morning with these words:
  No be-t e wiuga-the eo kigo zhi: Our hands are not the same color.
  These were the words of Chief Standing Bear as he was on trial in 
1879.
  And what was he accused of in that courtroom in Omaha? He was accused 
of leaving his reservation to bury his dead son on the Ponca homeland 
near Niobrara, Nebraska.
  Even though there were treaties with this Tribe, the Ponca had been 
forcefully relocated from Nebraska to Oklahoma. Along the way, his 
young daughter died. His son, suffering from the ill effects of this, 
later was very ill, and Chief Standing Bear promised him on his 
deathbed that he would bury him back in his homeland.
  So, leading a group of Ponca in a very tough winter of 1878, they 
began the trek back to Nebraska, and he was arrested. And through a 
series of things, ended up in court, and this is what he had to say:
  No be-t e wiuga-the eo kigo zhi: Our hands are not the same color. If 
I pierce mine, I will feel pain. If you pierce your hand, you will feel 
pain. When the blood flows, it will be the same color.
  Nu bthi. Wako da-ak a ekigo waxa: I am a man. God made us the same.
  These immortal words of the Ponca chief so deeply impacted the 
proceedings that the Court ruled in his favor and perhaps began a sea 
course of change of the history of our country.
  Because what did Chief Standing Bear do? He expressed the inherent 
dignity and rights of all people, regardless of color or ethnicity. He 
convinced U.S. District Court Judge Elmer Dundy in such a convicting 
way, he convinced the judge in an unprecedented move--now, remember, 
Madam Speaker, this is 1879, and this had been unprecedented. The judge 
ruled that ``an Indian is a person.'' An Indian is a person within the 
meaning of habeas corpus.
  And so Standing Bear had won his right and the right of all Native 
Americans to be recognized as persons under the law.
  Such a glaring injustice is almost unimaginable to us today in our 
time. The Ponca chief had prevailed in one of the most important civil 
rights court cases in the history of our Nation.
  And so, in Congress, we continue to recognize Standing Bear's 
remarkable life and achievement on behalf of his people; and, as I 
mentioned, Madam Speaker, in a few short months, we anticipate a 
ceremony here in Statuary Hall where one statue of one Nebraskan will 
be replaced by another Nebraskan.
  Each State legislature has the right to determine who is going to be 
in the Nation's Capitol. Currently, we are represented by William 
Jennings Bryan, a Member of Congress who held this congressional seat 
long before me, a three-time Presidential candidate who, again, is 
right at the entryway of Statuary Hall there.
  He has held that revered spot for many, many years; and yet, as we 
think creatively and imaginatively, as history moves forward, we think 
about other Nebraskans and other Americans whom we can appropriately 
honor. So

[[Page H4114]]

the legislature has determined that Chief Standing Bear ought to now 
stand in the place of honor for Nebraskans and for all Americans, with 
a particularly special focal point for honoring the first Americans, 
the indigenous people, the Native Americans. So we look forward to that 
ceremony coming soon.
  But I reintroduced a bill, as well, Madam Speaker, that directs the 
Secretary of the Interior to begin a feasibility study for the Chief 
Standing Bear National Historic Trail, which would basically trace the 
footsteps of the Ponca Tribe along their forced relocation.
  Again, Madam Speaker, the enshrinement of this trial into law with a 
new statue in the United States Capitol will set down a new marker for 
the remembrance of this great civil rights leader, a reminder of the 
ongoing need for the protection of human dignity and a celebration of 
the possibility brought out by one man's courage.
  Madam Speaker, as you are aware, shortly, we will celebrate Memorial 
Day, and in doing so, we honor those who gave their last full measure 
in service to our country. We appropriately stop the busyness and pause 
to observe, to reflect, to remember.
  The formal remembrance of our Nation's war dead is more than a 
nostalgic tradition. That a person would lay down his life for his 
friends, for another, demands that we turn our thoughts to the noblest 
of human ideals. When we gather together in community, when we gather 
together to simply say ``thank you'' and ``remember,'' we affirm our 
common bonds as a people.
  Now, it is not uncommon for any Member of this body to reflect 
publicly on the divisiveness, the anger, the resentment, the seeming 
inability to resolve conflicts and problems in a constructive, reasoned 
fashion that is fought out in this body, and, unfortunately, is 
exploited by the media, which profits off of this drama daily.

                              {time}  1800

  This is why Memorial Day and other reflective holidays are so 
important to us as a people: of course, to remember our war dead, but 
also to affirm the common bonds that unite.
  Before an international gathering of public officials that I 
attended, someone posed a question. It is a probing question. They 
simply asked this: Where would you like to live, where people lie, 
steal, and kill, or where people are good, trustworthy, and free?
  And when we consider the full arc of human history, it is often 
marked by fighting and dying and war. Each generation must face the 
agonizing and harsh prospect that twisted ideology, egomaniacal 
ambition, or the hunt for glory will compel small minds to rape and 
kill and pillage and crush the innocent. Try as we might to create the 
conditions for good will and mutual support, sometimes good Americans 
must step forward; they must volunteer to bravely protect the ideals 
that we hold dear.
  We are coming up on the 75th anniversary of D-day, June 6, 1944. 
There will be a bilateral, two-country commemoration by both America 
and France at Omaha Beach in France at the cemetery there where near 
approximately 10,000 Americans lay at rest.
  The night before D-day, the day before this famous photo of the 
Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower was taken--I happen to know 
President Eisenhower's granddaughter Susan, and we were chatting one 
day about this famous photo which occupies such an extraordinary place 
in our history, our folklore, our memory as a nation, and she said: 
Jeff, do you know what the President, the General, was speaking about 
in that photo?
  I had always made an assumption that, again, these young men who are 
getting ready to paratroop behind enemy lines the day before D-day were 
being given a last talk by the General about the need for courage and 
persistence, the need to think of what it means to be in the face of a 
barbaric aggressor, the need to fight hard and solemnly, to obey orders 
and to take care of their friends, the need to win the day. That is 
what I would have thought. That is what I would have guessed.
  Susan Eisenhower said: No. Do you know what the General was speaking 
about? Fly fishing and football.
  Now, why would he do that at this critical moment, this moment of 
tension and fear and adrenaline? Why would he do that?
  I think the better question is: Why wouldn't he do that? What more 
American thing could he do to remind these young men, many of whom may 
have given their life, of why they were doing this? To remind them of 
what they were tethered to: to home and hearth and things like fishing 
and football that represent the activities of community, the liberties 
we enjoy, the memories from childhood, the peace and tranquility that 
this country offers. Fight for that.
  I think that is what he was doing. So I was very amazed and 
corrected, mentally, in my impression of this pivotal moment, key 
moment in America's history.
  A group of Members of Congress will attend the 75th anniversary, and, 
of course, the veterans who will be there in attendance are quite old 
and will be few in number. France will have some awards for a few 
veterans as well.
  And it is amazing in that part of the world, the American flag flies 
over the French municipal buildings there because the French in that 
part of Europe, they do not forget. They celebrate what America gave.
  In fact, in August of 1944, Captain Luther Sexton Fortenberry, my 
grandfather, left his wife and two children, and he entered the war 
theater originally attached to a field hospital or to a hospital unit 
in England.
  He moved into the theater of war and was killed in November of 1944 
by an explosion. He was killed near the town of Sainte-Mere-Eglise, 
where some of these paratroopers potentially landed. There, the 
paratroopers landed in the midst of a German column and had to fight it 
out right in the town square.
  To this day, a replica of one of our paratroopers hangs on the church 
steeple, demonstrating what happened to him. He was actually caught on 
the church steeple as he came down. He survived the battle. The French 
there very much commemorate and honor what we gave.
  My grandfather was initially buried in the cemetery there at Sainte-
Mere-Eglise, but was later reinterred in Arlington Cemetery here in 
Washington, D.C., in 1948. This is how Omaha Cemetery came to be.
  All of the small cemeteries that were set up during the course of the 
war as things were moving so fast were consolidated in the various 
large cemeteries--again, Omaha Beach being one of our more notable--and 
families were given a choice: Do you want to leave your loved one in 
Europe or would you like to bring them home?
  Because my own father died when I was young, the direct memories of 
what happened to my own grandfather are a bit lost in the family 
tradition, so I have had to do a lot of record searching. I found out, 
though, that it was interesting. In 1948, when my grandfather was 
reinterred from this area of France, Sainte-Mere-Eglise, his remains 
were transported through the Port of Cherbourg.
  When I visited Omaha Beach Cemetery, the French civilians who work 
for us tending to the cemetery remembering our war dead, telling the 
stories of who they are, one young woman told me that it was her 
grandfather who started to work for the Americans in burying our war 
dead and that he used to work in the Port of Cherbourg preparing the 
remains of our war dead to come home. I thought to myself, what an 
amazing confluence of history, that maybe it was this young French 
woman's grandfather who prepared my grandfather to be returned home.
  So on the 75th anniversary, we will again remember that great battle, 
that turning point in the war in which so many lives were lost and so 
many young Americans came forward to say, ``I will serve.''
  Memorial Day is a beautiful time of remembrance, and communities all 
across America will recognize this special day. They will memorialize 
the fallen heroes of battle who gave us the chance to remain 
good, trustworthy, and free. It is a precious moment where we unite, 
where we are unified, where we hold things in common in gratitude for 
those who gave their life in service to these ideals.

  Beyond this special day, perhaps the greatest memorial we can offer 
is to do

[[Page H4115]]

exactly what they did: to think in sacrificial terms about what is 
nobler and higher, even in the midst of this body, where we have to 
debate with intensity the philosophical differences in order to find, 
to construct, a reasoned way forward for good public policy and the 
good of all Americans.
  Sometimes young people ask me: How do you make a decision? It is a 
great question. It is a beautiful question, because they are wrestling 
with how do you reconcile, as a representative of the people, what you 
may believe to be right with what the people are saying.
  Madam Speaker, I tell young people that I walk through a threefold 
process:
  The first is let's look at the evidence here. What is the analysis, 
the statistics, and what does other evidence say about what might be 
the right pathway here;
  Second, let's listen to the experts, or those who are affected, 
potentially, by this policy; and
  Third is you must consult your conscience, what you believe in your 
heart of hearts.
  Sometimes it is hard for young people to reconcile this because 
sometimes we have a misappropriation of the nature of representative 
government. The Representative, of course, is a reflection of the 
people who sent him there.
  And what does he or she owe those people? Right judgment, which means 
hard work and intellectual discipline around looking at the objective 
analysis of what can be determined as the outcome of a particular 
policy.
  Care, compassion, and fairness demands that we listen to people who 
are affected or who have expertise in the policy.
  But, ultimately, each one of us has to consult their conscience, 
always, hopefully, rightfully formed, to make a judgment about what is 
right, what is good, what is just.
  The beautiful gift of where I come from is, even if people may 
disagree and you give them an answer based upon those three dynamics, 
they will tell you they respect that. And that is the core of our 
system. That is what men and women continue to fight and die for, this 
gift of America, this gift of these ideals that somehow, with distinct 
differences and different backgrounds, we find a way to harmonize that 
which we ought to do--not just what we can do, but what we ought to do.
  Systems are not perfect. They can be messy and difficult. They can be 
ugly. But I always believe that public service is an honorable and high 
calling, and it is only made possible by sacrifice, sometimes the 
ultimate sacrifice by those who have been willing to give their all.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________