[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 20]
[Senate]
[Pages 28445-28447]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         HONORING OUR VETERANS

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, today, our forces for freedom encircle the 
globe. Our military men and women will observe Veterans Day in almost 
all of the world's time zones. In the skies, on the ground, and under 
the water, they will pause to remember.
  In a few moments, we, too, will pause to remember.
  As Senators, we have had the opportunity to work alongside so many 
who served our Nation so ably, and so nobly, during our country's 
struggles on behalf of freedom--heroes such as Strom Thurmond and Bob 
Dole, heroes such as John McCain and Bob Kerrey, heroes such as Max 
Cleland and Chuck Hagel, heroes such as Dan Inouye. We have seen how 
they and others have sacrificed and suffered for a cause greater than 
themselves. Their nobility and grace, in war and in peace, stand as 
examples to all in our new century and in the new conflict we fight 
today.
  We work in an institution that values unlimited speech--sometimes 
speech over everything else. But in my years of working alongside these 
heroes, I have discovered a lesson that runs true for all of them. To 
me it has been in these silences, the times they have not joined in 
with the majority of their colleagues, that they have demonstrated 
their strength.
  Our Nation is a cacophony of noise, a symphony of sound, from that 
factory floor to the market floor, from Main Street to Wall Street. It 
is the so-called roar of democracy that makes us unique as a nation and 
as a country. But this morning we are called to silence. Why?
  In our Nation's battles throughout her last two centuries, many have 
paid the ultimate sacrifice for freedom and liberty. This moment of 
silence we will shortly observe is the silence of those voices stilled 
forever, of sons and daughters no longer returning home, of husbands 
and wives no longer there for each other, of mothers and fathers no 
longer there for their children day and night.
  In the pain of these sacrifices, our warriors have built our country 
and saved our world. They have stood as freedom's sentinel and as 
liberty's shield. They have fought the fights to which history has 
called us and won the victories that faith has dared us.
  Our Nation is the beacon of liberty for so many people around the 
world, and it is the valor and dedication of the many heroes, sung and 
unsung, throughout the Nation's past 200 years--those who sleep 
forevermore--who have made it so. We honor them today not with noise 
but with silence.
  As the hour of 11 a.m. approaches, I ask that we do observe this 
moment of silence.
  I come from the great State of Tennessee. We have our share of 
hallowed war dead. We have our share of heroes, including perhaps one 
of the most famous Medal of Honor winners, Sergeant York. In a chain of 
events still astonishing today, he led a small squad of just 7 men in 
charging a machine gun nest mercilessly attacking his position, 
ultimately capturing 132 prisoners. An observer termed what he did ``a 
call to courage.''
  I encourage every American today to also take a moment of silence and 
look for those who have answered that call to courage. All throughout 
our country, every day our veterans merit our

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support, our respect, our thanks for advancing the cause of liberty 
here at home and indeed around the world. They took what was granted to 
them by their fathers and, with their service and with their labors, 
they passed it on to their children, bringing America still free into a 
new century.
  We pass legislation on their behalf to express the thanks--our 
thanks--of this grateful Nation. Today's silence is for them as well.
  Now our country fights a new enemy, faceless and hateful. It fights 
in new ways, bringing new terrors and threats and intimidations to our 
fellow Americans. That is the final lesson our moment of silence 
teaches us this morning.
  Together let's remember the strength of silence and, as we resume our 
labors here today, just as our Armed Forces work today around the 
world, let us move ahead with a little less noise and a little more 
fortitude.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The distinguished minority leader.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, each year, America honors its veterans on 
this day with solemn pride.
  But this year, Veterans Day arrives with uncommon poignancy. As we 
show our gratitude to our veterans here at home, a new generation of 
soldiers is thousands of miles from their loved ones, facing danger on 
our behalf.
  There is an immediacy to this year's Veterans Day. The risks our 
soldiers are facing today have not yet been softened by memory. Without 
the filter of history, we see clearly the dangers they face every day 
when we learn of yet another attack on American soldiers, yet another 
death, yet another family that must go on without a loved one. At the 
same time, we see clearly the good that American service men and women 
can perform when we witness the hopeful faces of Iraqis eager for a 
better, more peaceful life.
  Within the service of today's soldiers, we may see a clear reflection 
of the service of our veterans. Just as our soldiers today, our 
veterans, too, left families behind. They, too, woke up to uncertain 
dangers. They, too, saw friends and comrades injured or killed. Yet, 
knowing both their risks and their obligations, they, too, performed 
their duty each day.
  Forty years ago, President Kennedy noted that no nation ``in the 
history of the world has buried its soldiers farther from its native 
soil than we Americans--or closer to the towns in which they grew up.''
  At our proudest moments, the American people have sent our sons and 
daughters across the globe to fight for freedom. And once the fight was 
done, we have welcomed them home with honor and gratitude.
  Today, too, the honor of defending those who cannot defend themselves 
is carried forward by young American soldiers. And their families and 
friends wait anxiously for their safe return.
  South Dakota is proud of the role its sons and daughters have played 
in Operation Iraqi Freedom. At the start of the war, it was a B-1 
bomber crew from Ellsworth Air Force Base's 28th Bomb Wing that hit 
that bunker in Baghdad where it was thought the Iraqi leadership might 
have been hiding. All four members of the crew were awarded the 
Distinguished Flying Cross.
  Staff Sergeant Randy Meyer, a Marine from Big Stone City, was part of 
a unit that discovered 22 American prisoners of war along a highway 
near Baghdad.
  Sergeant Meyer noticed that Specialist Shoshanna Johnson was too hurt 
to walk--she had been shot in both ankles--so he picked her up and 
carried her to safety.
  And South Dakota's National Guard and Reserve units have been on the 
front lines, both during the active fighting and today as we work to 
stabilize Iraq and rebuild the nation of Iraq.
  Their service on this day is doubled. Because in addition to 
advancing democracy and security, their brave acts make us still more 
aware of, and still more grateful for, the brave acts of our veterans.
  But alongside our pride, Veterans Day comes with a challenge. Each 
year we should ask ourselves, have we done enough to honor the 
sacrifices of our soldiers and veterans?
  This year, if we are honest with ourselves, the answer must be no.
  Mr. President, in keeping with our agreement to stop for a moment of 
silence at 11 o'clock, I will do so and return to my remarks as soon as 
the moment of silence has been completed.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will observe a moment of silence.
  (Moment of Silence.)
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I am hard pressed to recall a time when 
the gap between the demands we place on our soldiers and the thanks we 
offer them once they return home has been wider. It is bitterly ironic 
that on this Veterans Day, while soldiers are facing danger far from 
home, the gap is still growing.
  Today, more than 500,000 American soldiers are stationed in 137 
different countries around the world. More than 300,000 are engaged in 
active combat or peacekeeping missions in seven different countries, 
including more than 140,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  More than 400 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq and 
Afghanistan. More than 2,400 have been wounded.
  Meanwhile, our military is stretched so thin we cannot tell many of 
our soldiers or their families when they might be coming home. And 
despite the added strain and the ever more complicated mission, we are 
failing to provide for our soldiers, our veterans, and their families.
  Veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom will join 250,000 veterans who 
must wait 6 months just to see a V.A. hospital doctor.
  This wait will be lengthened by the administration's closing of seven 
Veterans Hospitals and a budget that under-funds veterans health by 
$1.8 billion.
  In addition, the administration has opposed expanding health care 
benefits to Guard Members and Reservists and their families. It 
proposed cutting the pay to troops facing imminent danger. Schools for 
the children of military families are being threatened with cuts. And 
the Defense Department is closing 19 commissaries and considering 
whether to close 19 more.
  In a recent article in ``The Army Times,'' a representative from the 
National Military Family Association was quoted asking a question 
familiar to many of us today. ``How can leadership be talking about 
cutting back on quality-of-life benefits right now when the force and 
everyone supporting the force is at such a high stress level?''
  One colonel quoted in the article expressed it more simply: 
``Betrayal,'' he said to the reporter. ``Write that down and put it in 
your report.''
  In signing the GI Bill of Rights in 1944, President Roosevelt noted 
that ``the members of the Armed Forces have been compelled to make 
greater . . . sacrifice than the rest of us, and they are entitled to 
definite action to help take care of their special problems.''
  Each year, we are in danger of falling further behind in our 
obligation to our veterans. Recently, ``definite action'' has given way 
to little more than indefinite praise.
  Veterans deserve better.
  Some within this administration seem to believe that our 
responsibility to our soldiers ends when they come home. We disagree. 
These men and women risked their lives to defend our own. They stood up 
for us; now we must stand up for them, not with words but with deeds.
  Mr. President, not long ago, a teacher from a small town in the Black 
Hills of South Dakota gave her students an assignment. She asked them 
to tell the stories of each of the 2,200 South Dakotans who gave their 
lives in the fight for democracy during World War II.
  As word spread of the children's work, the teacher was asked to bring 
the program to the entire State.
  In doing their research, South Dakota's children discovered some 
amazing things. They found that Native American--treated within their 
own country as second-class citizens--rushed to enlist in record 
numbers. They found young men who had failed their

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physicals, but used a cousin's or a sibling's results to sneak into the 
service. They found youngest sons--and only sons--who could easily have 
gotten deferments, but instead demanded to serve.
  They also found official military records that listed the wrong home 
county for an extraordinary number of the South Dakotans killed in the 
war. At first, the students were puzzled. After a while, though, they 
discovered the reason: So many counties had overfilled their enrollment 
caps, that young men would claim to be from another county, just to be 
allowed to serve their Nation.
  All told, 68,000 South Dakotans enrolled in the Armed Services in 
WWII. My father was one of them. Two thousand two hundred of them never 
came home--a greater percentage of World War II deaths than any other 
State.
  Those who did make it home passed that same sense of loyalty and duty 
onto their sons and daughters. During the Vietnam war, 78 percent of 
South Dakota's eligible young men chose to serve.
  That was, by far, the highest percentage in the Nation. I was one of 
them. I was lucky. Two hundred South Dakotans who went to Vietnam 
didn't make it back.
  This year, too, South Dakotans have proven eager to serve. South 
Dakota has one of the highest proportions of our citizens serving in 
active duty in Iraq of any State in the country.
  South Dakota knows the true meaning of patriotism. We have sent out 
sons and daughters off to war, welcomed those who returned, and buried 
those that did not.
  We volunteer without boast or complaint. The rewards of citizenship 
are great, therefore, the demands are great.
  Having sent so many young people off to war, South Dakotans feel the 
tight bond that develops between soldiers and the communities they 
defend. And we know that the debt we owe to veterans cannot be repaid 
on this day alone.
  We enjoy our freedoms every day, and every day we must remember those 
by whose courage they were purchased.
  We must express our gratitude in both word and deed and commit 
ourselves to their care, as they committed themselves to our 
protection.
  Today, we witness the courage of our soldiers serving throughout the 
world and remember the courage of veterans throughout our history. 
Never once did they fall short of our expectations of them. Today, we 
must recommit ourselves to making sure we do not fall short of their 
expectations of us.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my remarks be taken from 
my leader time, not from the morning business time allocated for this 
tribute this morning.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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