[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Page 12785]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                          HAWTHORNE ARMY DEPOT

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, today--for the first time in many months--
there is peace in Kosovo.
  Like all Americans, I hope with all my heart that the peace will be 
both lasting and just.
  I rise today not to discus the war--or the way it was conducted--or 
the terms on which it was ended.
  Many Americans risked their lives in the air over Kosovo in the 
bombers and helicopters flying over the front lines. Every night, 
America watched the heroism and skill of those pilots as they braved 
anti-aircraft fire to drop laser-guided bombs and missiles and other 
ordnance onto targets with amazing accuracy.
  But what we often forget is that those heroics were made possible by 
the efforts of thousands of Americans working behind the lines, off-
camera, in a variety of roles--maintaining the planes, feeding the 
pilots, shipping supplies, performing countless other functions 
critical to men and women in combat.
  Now that the war is over, I think that we owe all of those countless 
Americans, who helped in ways both large and small, a nod of thanks for 
their sacrifice and for their effort.
  Today, I particularly want to acknowledge the unique contribution of 
several hundred men and women from my home state of Nevada.
  The war in Kosovo was the first successful large-scale campaign waged 
exclusively by air. Much more than other wars, that kind of war relies 
heavily upon specialized ordnance--the laser-guided smart bombs and 
precision rockets that were so effective in destroying Slobodan 
Milosevic's infrastructure and weapons of war.
  Many of those weapons were supplied by the hardworking men and women 
of Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada.
  Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada is the largest ammunition storage 
facility in the world. It employs about 500 people in the state of 
Nevada, and stores munitions of all kinds for our Armed Forces.
  For the past several weeks, many of those 500 men and women worked 
overtime--sometimes working 12 to 16 hour days, for days on end--to 
supply many of the bombs, rockets, shells, and missiles used to such 
devastating effect in Kosovo.
  During the course of the war, Hawthorne Army Depot shipped about 
10,000 tons of munitions to our troops in Kosovo, including hundreds of 
the 750-pound bombs used to destroy Slobodan Milosevic's 
infrastructure.
  And even though the war is over, their job is not. They still have a 
long, tough job ahead of them to replenish the weapons and munitions 
expended during the closing days of the conflict, to supply the 
peacekeeping forces now entering Kosovo, and to return to storage the 
thousands of bombs and munitions being shipped back now that the 
fighting is over.
  I take this opportunity to say to those hardworking men and women at 
Hawthorne, thank you for a job well done.

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