[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5417]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



         COMMEMORATING THE LIFE OF LANCE CORPORAL SETH G. JONES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. Madam Speaker, I rise today with profound 
sadness to honor the short, yet exceptional life of Lance Corporal Seth 
G. Jones, who perished last Saturday, along with 18 fellow Marines, in 
an aircraft crash near Marana, Arizona.
  Madam Speaker, Lance Corporal Jones was only 18 years of age. A 
native of Bend, Oregon, and a graduate of Mountain View High School, he 
joined the Marine Corps in February of 1999. After graduating from the 
Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, California, Seth fulfilled his 
long-held dream of serving in the infantry. At the time of his death, 
he served as an assaultman assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, 
stationed at Camp Pendleton, California.
  Remembered by friends and family alike as a motivated young American 
with a steadfast sense of patriotism and duty, Lance Corporal Jones 
was, quite simply, what parents want their children to grow up to be. 
His high school ROTC instructor remembered him as ``more than 
enthusiastic, energetic and intense. Seth was turbocharged.'' Seth's 
hockey coach recalled meeting him after he completed basic training and 
saying, ``In that short time he had gone from a teenager to an adult. 
He had grown up.''
  Madam Speaker, nothing is more tragic than a life so full of promise 
cut short before its time. And there is no worse grief than that 
suffered by parents who must bury their child, because it is not the 
way life's journey is supposed to go.
  Lance Corporal Jones answered his country's call and he knew the 
meaning of the word duty. While he did not die in a hail of gunfire, 
Seth gave his life for his country nonetheless. Training for the day 
when he might be called upon to defend his native land, he gladly 
shouldered a responsibility few of us can fully appreciate. In an age 
when most kids are worried about what they are going to wear on 
Saturday night, Seth was jumping out of helicopters and practicing 
hostage rescue.
  Madam Speaker, surrounded by the luxury of our system of government 
that is afforded us, we often forget that there are still people among 
us whose job it is to carry rifles into battle, who shoot at our 
enemies and are in turn shot at, so that we may continue to live as a 
free people. There are men like Lance Corporal Jones who are familiar 
with the chill of a night spent in a foxhole and the exhaustion of a 
forced march who protect those of us who are not.
  John Stuart Mill once wrote, ``A man who has nothing he cares about 
more deeply than his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no 
chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of 
better men than himself.'' Lance Corporal Jones, and the Marines who 
lost their lives, were the very guardians of our liberty, Madam 
Speaker, the men whose exertions keep us free. To his family, to his 
country, and to his Corps, Lance Corporal Jones, like his fellow fallen 
Marines, was as the Marine Corps motto reads: Always faithful.
  While the cause of this tragic accident is still unknown, this 
morning I met with Lieutenant General Fred McCorkle, deputy chief of 
staff for the Marine Corps Aviation, to underscore the need for a full 
investigation to be undertaken to ensure that the equipment used by our 
men and women in uniform does not subject them to unnecessary risks.

                              {time}  1815

  In this time of grief, my deepest sympathy goes out to the family of 
Lance Corporal Jones as it does to the entire Marine Corps family.

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