[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 60 (Tuesday, April 5, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1961-S1962]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Remembering Thomas Horace Porter

  Ms. DUCKWORTH. Madam President, I come to the floor today to mourn 
the passing and celebrate the life of Thomas Horace Porter, my good 
friend and a man who could put a smile on my face even in the toughest 
times, on one of the most painful days of my life, while I was 
recovering at Walter Reed.
  Among the peer visitors at Walter Reed Hospital, two of the most 
beloved were Tom and his wife Eleanor.
  Tom was a gentle giant--a tall, smiling, then-74-year-old veteran who 
showed up at my bedside while I was still sedated to talk with my 
husband and mother and who came to visit again soon after I regained 
consciousness.
  As a young Army lieutenant in the Korean war, Tom had lost both his 
legs in a landmine explosion. His heroic actions saving his men on that 
day earned Tom both the Silver Star in addition to the Purple Heart for 
his combat injuries.
  During his months of recuperation back in the States, Eleanor--or El, 
as we all know her--an Army second lieutenant herself, had been one of 
his physical therapists.
  The couple ended up married for more than 50 years. Tom continued to 
serve our Nation--this time as a civil servant, achieving the rank of 
Senior Executive Service in the Department of Agriculture. When 
Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom began and the wounded 
began flooding the wards at Walter Reed, Tom and El decided that they 
needed to help. They became peer visitors, and for the next 7 years, 
during twice weekly visits, they changed the lives of countless 
veterans who passed through that hospital, my own included.
  When I was at Walter Reed, Tom made it his mission to talk with 
injured troops about the full lives they will lead after their 
devastating injuries.
  A lot of the wounded warriors around me were really young, just 19 to 
24 years old, lying in their hospital beds with limbs missing, burns to 
their faces and bodies, skulls crushed and encased in protective metal 
cages or helmets. They were all facing a future none of them had 
planned for. Like them, I had always assumed I would either die in 
combat or come home. The third option of coming home severely injured 
was never something that occurred to the majority of us.
  Tom would walk in with that big smile of his and say: Hey, I was like 
you. Lost my legs at 22. But I recovered and I have had a full and 
regular life. I courted El after I lost my legs, and she and I have 
been married for 50 years and have wonderful kids and grandkids.

[[Page S1962]]

  He reassured them that they could still have the lives they dreamed 
of, and his words had weight because he was living proof that that was 
possible.
  He would wink and joke: Listen, having an amputation is better than 
having a puppy. Trust me, you won't have any trouble getting the 
ladies.
  And then he would answer any questions they had because he knew they 
needed to hear from someone who had already journeyed on the road they 
were about to travel.
  For years, Tom and El came into Walter Reed every Tuesday and 
Thursday without fail. El was known as the Cookie Lady because she 
would bring in dozens of homemade cookies that she collected from folks 
at her church.
  For those of us who were in the hospital a long time, El knew our 
favorites. Mine were oatmeal raisin. If I was at physical therapy or in 
surgery or getting my wounds debrided when El made her rounds, she 
would make sure to leave a little bag of cookies by my bedside table. 
It was a real treat in the midst of the painful, early stages of 
recovery--something to look forward to every week.
  Tom and El. El and Tom. The two of them became family for all of us. 
They would bring me and my husband to their lakeside home, feed us 
home-cooked meals, and let me fall asleep in their hammock overlooking 
the water, knowing the good that getting out of that fluorescent-lit 
hospital room would do me.
  As someone who loved and was desperately missing the ocean, I can't 
begin to describe how restorative those days by the lake were.
  There are no words for how right it felt to be drifting off to sleep 
to the sound of waves hitting the shore rather than to the beeps and 
the buzz of the hospital machines that had been my nightly soundtrack 
for too long.
  And there is no possible way to express just how grateful I am to Tom 
and El for making that a possibility; for giving me a taste of home, 
right when I felt most like a stranger to myself; for enveloping me in 
something good and whole right when I felt untethered from what I felt 
was my life's mission; and for simply being who they were--kind and 
fierce, as compassionate for the people they loved as they were 
passionate about the causes that they believed in.
  They were our advocates, our heroes, our Tom and our El.
  I am so sorry for your loss, El. We miss Tom every single day. Thank 
you both for all you did for me and what you did for all of us. We miss 
you desperately.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.