[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 2]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 2881-2882]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           A SOLDIER'S STORY

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                           HON. JOHN SHIMKUS

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 11, 2003

  Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to submit the following 
article from the Shelbyville Daily Union, ``A Soldier's Story: Letters 
Between Shelbyville Men Unite Mothers.''
  This story first appeared on February 10th. It is a prime example of 
the human component of our efforts to pursue and promote freedom and 
liberty.

    A Soldier's Story: Letters Between Shelbyville Men Unite Mothers

                           (By Sharon Mosley)

       In 1990, during duty off the coast of Oman, United States 
     Marine Staff Sergeant Keith Boehm wrote a letter to 
     Shelbyville seventh grader Brian Alex Miller telling about 
     his life as part of helicopter crew during the Gulf War. 
     Miller had written to Boehm, a Shelbyville native, as part of 
     a school assignment to write to soldiers.
       ``You wrote that it is boring when it rains,'' wrote Boehm. 
     ``Well you should try spending six months on a ship.'' What 
     followed was a detailed description of Boehm's life as an 
     electrician attached to a helicopter crew. While he told of 
     the many mundane hours spent working on the ship, he also 
     shared with his young reader some ``pretty exciting stuff'' 
     like landing reconnaissance troops and scattering a herd of 
     wild camels with the helicopter.

[[Page 2882]]

       Boehm's letter became part of Miller's collection of 
     ``things''--tucked away in a drawer while Miller grew up, 
     graduated from Shelbyville High School in 1995 and attended 
     the University of Illinois. He is now a graduate student at 
     the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studying 
     architecture. With the possibility of another war in the Gulf 
     looming, Miller's mother, Nancy Miller of Shelbyville, found 
     Alex's letter from Boehm and wondered what had happened to 
     the Staff Sergeant from Shelbyville. One phone call later, 
     she found Boehm's mother, Sharon Boehm, also of Shelbyville.
       ``It is funny that we've both lived here all these years 
     and didn't know each other,'' Nancy Miller said. 
     ``Shelbyville's not that large.'' Sharon Boehm said Keith is 
     now Warrant Officer Boehm and is still a Marine, currently 
     based in California.
       ``He was going to retire but after September 11 they froze 
     all the retirements so he's still in,'' said Sharon Boehm. 
     ``He's active in recruiting.''
       Nancy Miller said she was interested in letters from 
     soldiers in part, because an uncle, also a Marine, was killed 
     at Okinawa during World War II.
       ``From his letters we were able to get a sense of what he 
     was going through and the terrible conditions,'' she said. 
     ``He also wrote about how family letters were so important to 
     him.'' Nancy thinks now there should be more opportunities to 
     write to soldiers.
       ``I would love to write to those soldiers who are serving 
     now,'' she said. ``To let them know we're thinking of them, 
     we're proud of them, and we support them.''
       Sharon Boehm said her younger son Keith entered the Marines 
     right after high school graduation in 1980. His older 
     brother, Kevin, was in the Navy at the time.
       ``I guess he just got in and decided he liked it,'' Sharon 
     Boehm said. ``He had been in ten years when the Gulf War came 
     around and he stayed in afterwards.''
       On Friday, the two mothers met for the first time and 
     showed each other photos of their sons. Then, Nancy Miller 
     gave Keith Boehm's letter to his mother for safekeeping.
       ``I think it was a very thoughtful letter for a soldier in 
     the middle of a very difficult situation to write to a 
     student,'' she said. ``I know I'm proud of my son, and I know 
     she (Sharon Boehm) is proud of her son.''

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