[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 206 (Monday, December 7, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7234-S7235]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                 Remembering Ensign Joshua Kaleb Watson

  Mr. JONES. Mr. President, 1 year ago yesterday, on December 6, 2019, 
a terrorist attack on the Naval Air Station Pensacola killed three 
American servicemen.
  While it is appropriate and it has been done to honor each of these 
men, I rise today with a solemn purpose of honoring and commemorating 
the life, service, and patriotism of one in particular: Navy ENS Joshua 
Kaleb Watson of Enterprise, AL, whose promising life and career were 
tragically cut short in the terrorist attack a year and 1 day ago 
yesterday.
  Kaleb was posthumously honored last Friday, receiving the Purple 
Heart in a ceremony in Pensacola. I really regret that I could not go 
and that I was unable to join his family, but there was also a wreath-
laying ceremony at Building 633 where Kaleb was shot and a candlelight 
vigil there last night. I know that all were solemn occasions for the 
Navy, for the family, and for America.
  Kaleb was a rising star. A recent graduate of the Naval Academy, 
Kaleb had dreamed of becoming a Navy pilot and had reported to 
Pensacola for flight training the week of Veterans Day. Kaleb was 
described as a natural leader, a person who put others first and 
strived to bring out the best in them.
  At the Naval Academy, Kaleb was a small arms instructor, wrestling 
coach,

[[Page S7235]]

and captain of the rifle team. In fact, under his leadership, much to 
the chagrin of a couple folks in this body, like Senator Reed, the 
Academy's rifle team beat Army for the first time in a decade.
  Ben Watson, Kaleb's father, said to me once that Kaleb's mission was 
to confront evil, to bring the fight to them wherever it took him. He 
was willing to risk his life for his country. Kaleb did confront evil 
that day, and he made the ultimate sacrifice.
  Unfortunately, that was not how Kaleb intended to serve his country. 
It was not what Kaleb's parents expected when he joined the Navy. 
Kaleb's father put it rather bluntly:

       We never thought he would die in Florida.

  Kaleb Watson was the officer on deck at the Naval Air Station 
Pensacola on the morning of December 6, 2019. Consequently, he was one 
of the first people the shooter encountered. Kaleb was shot at least 
five times that day. Heavily wounded, he made his way out to flag down 
first responders, gave them an accurate description of the shooter that 
ultimately led to the shooter being killed. Unfortunately, later that 
day, Kaleb died of his wounds while in the hospital.
  The Navy conducted an investigation into the incident and concluded 
the primary cause of the attack was the Saudi shooter's self-
radicalization. However, the report also goes on to note numerous 
deficiencies in many areas, some of which contributed to the attack and 
others which could have deterred the attack or mitigated the 
consequences. In other words, things could have been different that 
day. Things should have been different that day.
  We lost two other young men, Airman Mo Haitham from Florida and 
Airman Apprentice Cameron Walters of Georgia, and 11 more individuals 
were wounded. That has happened far too many times. Too many Americans 
have lost their lives to shooters on U.S. bases on U.S. soil.
  The Pensacola attack was the second shooting at a military base in 3 
days. On December 3, 2019, a shooting at the Pearl Harbor Naval 
Shipyard in Hawaii left two people dead and a third wounded. There have 
been several other shootings at U.S. military installations, including 
a mass shooting in 2009 at Fort Hood in Killeen, TX. That shooting 
claimed 13 lives and left another 30 injured.
  Five years later, another shooting happened at Fort Hood when a 
gunman went on a shooting spree, killing 3 people and injuring 14 
before killing himself. In 2013, 12 workers at the Washington Navy Yard 
right here in our Nation's Capital were killed by a military 
contractor, who was later killed by security officials. In 2015, two 
military installations in Chattanooga, TN, were attacked by a gunman 
who killed four people before he was shot by police.
  There have been investigative reports about all of those shootings, 
and there have been recommendations in each one of the reports. 
Everybody shook their head and said: We have got to do better. We can't 
continue to allow this to happen.
  What we see from the Pensacola report we received just recently is 
that many of those recommendations were never followed, especially with 
regard to planning, training, and assessment of response plans for 
situations just like the one that occurred in Pensacola, FL. That is 
simply inexcusable.
  We have young men and women every year, every day, every week, every 
month that volunteer to put their lives on the line for this country, 
never dreaming that their life may be put on the line within the 
security of the confines of a U.S. military base on U.S. soil--not 
overseas, not as part of some overseas terrorist attack, but right here 
where they should be most secure.
  Ben Watson and his wife Sheila have made it their mission to do 
everything they can to prevent losing more of our sons and daughters in 
this way. I think this body ought to do the same.
  Every year, we have nominations. We make nominations, and we get the 
appointments back, sending those young men and women to the academies 
who will then go to those bases. We have a responsibility for that, as 
well as our overall responsibility to the men and women in uniform.
  This year, I asked for--and the conference committee included in the 
final version of the NDAA--language requiring the Secretary of Defense 
to implement, within 90 days, all applicable security and emergency 
response recommendations to protect our military installations and 
language requiring the Secretary of Defense to ensure that each 
installation conducts or develops a plan to conduct live emergency 
response training with first responders.
  At a couple of hearings, including one just last week, I asked Navy 
leadership at an Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee hearing for 
their commitment. It is not the first time I had brought it up, but I 
knew it was going to be the last hearing, and I knew that this NDAA was 
hopefully going to include this language, but sometimes, the language 
is just not enough. I asked for their commitment to ensure that these 
long overdue steps are taken and accomplished. They, of course, gave me 
those assurances and that commitment.
  There are thousands of important provisions in the NDAA that 
hopefully will come to the floor very soon, but none--none--of those 
provisions are more important than those that ensure we do everything 
we can to keep our servicemembers and their families, who live and work 
on our bases, safe from attacks like these.
  As the Navy itself said in the Pensacola report, talking about 
security manning--and I quote from the report, The ``[Department of the 
Navy] must abandon minimum manning thresholds designed to protect 
physical assets and to meet ineffective response times. Instead, 
installations must be manned to rapidly respond with a preponderance of 
force at any time to preserve our most precious asset, our personnel. 
Increased security force manning enables presence, deterrence, 
assurance, and enhanced response''--our most precious asset, our 
personnel.
  Well, as a father of three and grandfather of two, I understand how 
precious our children are to our families.
  As a member of the Armed Services Committee for the past 2 years, I 
have seen firsthand how precious our men and women in uniform are to 
this country, and I have seen this body rise to the occasion to 
understand our fiduciary responsibilities that we have to those men and 
women who protect and defend us every day.
  I had the privilege of visiting with some of the folks in Afghanistan 
and Iraq and working with many more here in the United States. Wherever 
they are serving, we owe them our best because we owe them our freedom.
  I want to thank the Watson family--Ben, Sheila, their son Adam--for 
their patriotism in supporting Kaleb in his dream to become a Navy 
pilot, and I want to extend again my sincerest condolences for his 
untimely death.
  With the Watsons, however, I want to encourage this body to hold the 
Navy to the commitments that they made to me last week and to insist 
that the entire Department of Defense follow its recommendations for 
protecting our military installations from within--protect them from 
future attacks from within.
  Although I will be leaving this body in a few weeks, I urge all of my 
colleagues to take up the baton to do our congressional oversight duty 
like our lives depend on it because there are lives which depend on it, 
and if their lives depend on it, our lives depend upon on it.
  Everyone should take up that mantle. Everyone should do all that they 
can to preserve and protect the American service men and women who 
protect us. They are our most precious asset, our personnel.
  For their sakes and for their families, let's do this thing. Let's 
get this NDAA passed and then hold them to it in this next Congress.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). The majority leader.