[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 17]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 25366-25367]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



     TRIBUTE TO FORMER DISTRICT DIRECTOR AND FRIEND JOHN J. McGUIRE

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JAMES T. WALSH

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, October 27, 2000

  Mr. WALSH. Mr. Speaker, on Monday, October 16, 2000, John J. McGuire, 
my former District Director in Syracuse, New York, and close, personal 
friend, died after a long battle with brain cancer. John served as an 
integral part of my staff since my election to Congress in 1988. Prior 
to that time, he served as a compliance officer for 11 years with the 
Wage and Hour Division of the United States Department of Labor in 
Syracuse.
  John McGuire, a former Marine, was a highly decorated disabled 
American veteran. He is a past recipient of the Veterans Service Award 
from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, four Special 
Achievement Awards and the Federal Distinguished Career Award. After 
serving as a sergeant in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, John 
taught English both here in the United States and in the Balkans.
  With John's death early last week, his wife and children lost a 
terrific husband and father, and I lost a neighbor, a close advisor and 
loyal friend. The Central New York community lost a tireless worker and 
community advocate, and the entire nation lost a dedicated public 
servant and true American patriot.
  I submit the attached column by Mr. Sean Kirst printed in the October 
18th issue of the Syracuse Post-Standard, which so eloquently details 
John McGuire's motivation and career, be included in the Congressional 
Record to commemorate his distinguished life.
  He certainly will be missed, but can never be forgotten.

            VETERAN, AIDE, FAMILY MAN DIDN'T DIE FOR NOTHING

       John McGuire was a neighbor. He lived on the dead-end block 
     of Robineau Road in Syracuse. Years ago, he bought a big 
     metal pole and set it into a deep hole. He got a backboard 
     and a rim, and he hung them above the street.
       His children, all the time, were out there playing 
     basketball. Other kids often joined them in shooting hoops. 
     Sometimes they were kids McGuire never saw before.
       It became clear, over the years, that he was a true 
     believer.
       McGuire, 55 died Monday morning. His death was the second 
     jolt in recent weeks on our small block, where Nick Rossi, a 
     teacher, also died of cancer. In a sense, that is the cost of 
     any strong neighborhood. With every loss, the fabric 
     changes--much like a family.
       Years ago, Representative Jim Walsh also lived on that same 
     block. Walsh and McGuire, as neighbors, turned into good 
     friends. When Walsh was elected to Congress, he asked McGuire 
     to join his staff. McGuire was called ``district director,'' 
     but an awful lot of people knew him as Walsh's guy for vets.
       Walsh will tell you he got lucky. He couldn't have made a 
     better choice. There are countless stories of McGuire going 
     to the wall to help someone receive benefits, or McGuire 
     helping old veterans get the medals they deserved.
       McGuire was an ex-Marine, a combat veteran of Vietnam. 
     Sometimes he'd be sitting outside on his porch, watching a 
     crowd of kids playing basketball, and he'd talk a little 
     about the war. He spoke in a soft voice, with an accent 
     forged in Brooklyn, and he'd recall the time they split 
     dozens of Marines into two groups. They put both groups on 
     different planes, to fly to the same place.
       One plane got hit. Everybody died. John McGuire was on the 
     other plane.
       He came home angry, he said, lacking faith in anything. He 
     wondered at the senseless luck that sent him back alive, when 
     good friends in Vietnam seemed to die for nothing. Over the 
     next few years, he forged a hard logic. He dedicated himself 
     to justifying those who died, and the best way to do it was 
     by helping veterans. If that circle went unbroken, then their 
     sacrifice made sense.
       That is what he did, for the rest of his life. He married a 
     strong women, Joyce Kusak, and they had four terrific 
     children. McGuire lived for two things--his family and his 
     cause. Kusak-McGuire tells a story of standing exhausted at 
     the door, a newborn baby in her arms, while her husband left 
     in the middle of the night to take down a veteran threatening 
     suicide.
       The McGuires settled on the dead-end block of Robineau. 
     Years later, my family moved in down the street. One night, 
     McGuire sat on the porch and watched a crowd of kids shooting 
     baskets. Some of them he knew. Some of them he'd never seen. 
     As he watched, he explained why he lived in the city.
       He expressed a great respect, almost a reverence, for 
     elderly veterans. He spoke of how he admired his parents and 
     their contemporaries, the way they dealt with the Great

[[Page 25367]]

     Depression, World War II, all the fears of the Cold War. But 
     he also said that generation could not solve every problem, 
     and one of the problems handed down was the polarization over 
     race.
       ``We'll never solve anything,'' McGuire said, ``unless we 
     take it on.'' His wife felt the same way. They stayed in 
     Syracuse.
       A couple of years ago, McGuire returned to his hotel room 
     at a business meeting. He kept trying to push his room key 
     into the lock, upside down. His close friend, Harry Schultz, 
     knew something was wrong. He got McGuire to a nurse, who 
     examined him and then rushed him to a hospital. Brain tumor. 
     They did surgery, but the tumor eventually came back.
       McGuire, in the past few months, often took long walks. I 
     saw him walking on a June morning with his son Aiden just 
     after I returned from a conference in Washington. I think 
     McGuire also had his toddler grandson with him, but maybe 
     that is how I want to remember it.
       I had visited the Wall, the Vietnam Memorial, for the first 
     time. By coincidence, I had been there on Father's Day. As 
     always happens on that day, there was a gathering for grown 
     children of the soldiers whose names are on the wall. They 
     brought sponges and buckets of water. They scrubbed their 
     fathers' names to a shine.
       I told McGuire the story. He started weeping, shoulders 
     heaving, in the middle of the road. He said sonething--his 
     voice cracking--about men who died for nothing.
       That burden's gone. He's with them now. He spent his life 
     shining the wall.

     

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