[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 16]
[House]
[Page 23776]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



         TRIBUTE TO FIRST RESPONDERS, THE NATION'S FIREFIGHTERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, back in 1992, Congress passed 
legislation to allow and establish a national memorial for fallen 
firefighters. Yesterday up in Emmitsburg, Maryland, we had such a 
ceremony. This past year, 95 firefighters in the United States lost 
their lives in the line of duty. I think this Congress, this Nation, 
owes these individuals, the Americans that have fallen in the line of 
duty before them and certainly every first responder in this country, a 
debt of gratitude, a vote of thanks. Protecting public safety and 
public property is a brave calling. We certainly should as a Congress 
thank those individuals for the great job they did. Yesterday up in 
Emmitsburg it was a day of remembrance but it was also a day of 
celebration, because these individuals contributed so much in the 
spirit of honor and duty. I am a strong believer that everyone should 
be a supporter of their community, should try in some way to make their 
individual communities a little bit better by contributing, by being in 
public service, by being on the fund-raising committee, contributing an 
effort to help others when they need help.
  It seems to me that cynicism has just spread too far across this 
country and there are too many that now consider duty and honor to be 
just words, relics of the past. But these men and women, our first 
responders, our police, and firemen especially in yesterday's 
dedication, they believed in duty, they believed in commitment, they 
believed in community. And certainly these qualities in first 
responders across the Nation deserve more support from this Congress.
  Now, we call them first responders because, and I will give a couple 
of examples. When we turned on our television last spring to the 
terrifying situation at Columbine High School, who did we see on that 
television set? It was the first responders that got there first. The 
firefighters were there first. Whether it is wildfires or earthquakes 
or tornadoes or fires of unimaginable danger and stress, or when it is 
a beloved kitten going up a tree or when you need help for a fund-
raising in the community, it is these firefighters that are there, they 
are willing to make the difference, they are willing to give their time 
and the effort.
  We have got 32,000 fire departments in the United States. We have got 
103 million first responders. Eighty percent of those first responders 
are volunteers, volunteers that go and risk their lives to protect 
lives and safety and support their community. I think they embody the 
beliefs of the founders of our country who were deeply committed to the 
idea that the individual had an obligation to the community, that our 
country needed its domestic defenders, our firefighters, our first 
responders, every bit as much as it needed a national defense.
  Our thanks certainly should go out not only to these firefighters but 
their loved ones who experienced the tremendous effort, the sacrifice 
that these firefighters have made for their communities. Stories where 
firefighters made the difference are in almost every home and every 
community. They are certainly in my home where the firefighters came to 
my farm and saved not only property but the lives of a lot of my cattle 
on that farm. As far as I am concerned, they are the champions we can 
never fully thank, and speeches like this speech tonight or speeches up 
in Emmitsburg never are going to be adequate enough to thank those 
individuals that made that kind of sacrifice.
  If there is any lesson that we can take, Mr. Speaker, as Americans 
from those in our communities that contribute so much, to make sure 
that we also make an effort to their memory to try to do our duty in 
helping others, in helping our community, in trying to do something to 
make our communities better and help the lives of the people that we 
know a little better, that is what we should do.

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