[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5231-5235]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            AMERICAN HEROES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. McCotter). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Cunningham) is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I would also like to commend my 
colleagues on the other side, especially the Congressional Black 
Caucus. This was an informative hour. It was not to blast the White 
House or Republicans. It was issues of general concern, of moneys that 
they think should be put in, and it was issue-based, and I would like 
to commend my colleagues.
  Mr. Speaker, my friend and I, the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Hunter), whose seat is down in San Diego, California, we come to praise 
Caesar and on a positive note, too many times that this Nation loses 
its heroes, and they are not recognized.
  Tonight, it was actually my colleague's idea. I just kind of chummed 
along. We stand up tonight and mention some folks that we know that 
have contributed to national security, that have contributed to every 
man and woman's life in this country, and some other countries as well; 
and with that, I would yield to my colleague, the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Hunter).
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for yielding, 
who is, in fact, one of those rare individuals himself, one of the 
great leaders in aviation in this last quarter century, as the only 
American ace from Vietnam and a nominee for the Congressional Medal of 
Honor.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Reclaiming my time, I would like to correct that. My 
backseater, Willy Driscoll, qualified, and the Air Force, Steve Ritchie 
was a pilot Ace, and Jeff Feinstein in the backseat.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, let me qualify that. The gentleman from 
California (Mr. Cunningham), along with Willy Driscoll, were the first 
aces in Vietnam, but actually the only Navy aces, and my colleague has 
had a great record there.
  What I wanted to do tonight, and I know my colleague has a number of 
aviation leaders and I think it is appropriate at this time in our 
history, when we are on the verge of perhaps another conflict and we 
have lots of people deployed and lots of people defending liberty 
around the world for the United States, is to reflect on some of the 
great Americans who have stepped forward as citizen soldiers, so to 
speak, and led this Nation.
  I am not a pilot and I am not a great friend of aircrafts, but one 
thing that I have always reflected on was that if we did not have these 
people who came from our villages, from our farms, from our cities and 
had a desire to fly and saw an intrigue in flying and interest in 
flying, and thereby became involved and ultimately became pilots in 
uniform for this country, we would not have this great country, because 
as Billy Mitchell said, and we are going to reflect on him a little 
bit, we entered the age of air power early in this century, and it was 
American air power that has helped us to retain our freedom.
  What I thought I wanted to do, I know we have got a number of people 
to talk about: Billy Mitchell, Chuck Yeager, Joe Foss, and several 
others.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. General Cardenas.
  Mr. HUNTER. I thought we might start with General Bob Cardenas, who 
is a quiet man. He is a guy we do not see on a lot of magazine covers, 
but Bob Cardenas is a great test pilot, great bomber pilot who had his 
bomber blown apart in World War II, landed on one side of the lake, in 
fact German side of the lake, other side of the lake was Switzerland. 
He and his colleague, who also bailed out, swam that lake to get to 
freedom, and Bob later became one of the great test pilots of this 
country and he flew the B-29 and was a project manager and flew the B-
29 that dropped Chuck Yeager's X-1 out in October of 1947 and watched 
it break the speed of sound.
  So Bob Cardenas was a remarkable individual, a guy who came up 
through San Diego, went to San Diego State. He used to build model 
airplanes as a

[[Page 5232]]

kid. He got involved in flying, saw those. He helped local glider 
pilots with their construction of their planes. He bummed rides with 
folks who were flying guide gliders. He was a very bright student and 
went to San Diego State and ultimately joined the United States Air 
Force; and Robert Cardenas has been just a model of what I would call 
our first citizens, our best citizens.
  Today, Bob is a guy who leads veterans groups in San Diego; and if a 
person has an important veterans issue, Bob Cardenas will be there, 
never for pay, never for reward, never with a kind of a pronouncement 
that is designed to attract attention, but the quiet man, with lots of 
wisdom.
  One of my favorite pictures of Bob Cardenas is one that was taken by 
a tourist in, I believe it was 1953, when he flew the flying Wing right 
down Pennsylvania Avenue at the request of President Truman. In fact, 
it was not 1953. It was February 9, 1949. The flying Wing looks exactly 
like a B-2 bomber at a distance, and yet at 1949, when I was 1 year 
old, this great test pilot flew this flying Wing which is very 
difficult to control. In fact, he wrote a memo that went to President 
Truman saying it was not suitable to be a bomber aircraft at that time, 
but he flew it right down Pennsylvania Avenue and he flew it over this 
Capitol.
  His boss said, Bob, fly down Pennsylvania Avenue and try not to hit a 
tree; and Bob was watching those trees so intently he said he just 
barely saw the Capitol in time and pulled up. It just so happened there 
was a photographer out here to the east of the Capitol, just a tourist, 
who took this incredible, dramatic picture in 1949 of that flying Wing 
coming right over the United States Capitol, and that autographed 
picture is one of my treasured mementoes because it reflects a guy who 
came from San Diego with an open demeanor, with a great character and 
with just a desire to fly and to help his country while he was doing 
it, just a very open and honest expression of patriotism and developed 
into one of the great fighter pilots or one of the great test pilots of 
all time and ended up being an important figure in the advancement of 
American aerospace.
  Today, as we watch these B-1 bat-like airplanes, these B-2s, half a 
century later rolling out into action and being in theater now in the 
Gulf, and prepared for potential action against an adversary, every 
time I see one of those planes I think of this great Bob Cardenas, 
1949, flying that plane at President Truman's request over the U.S. 
Capitol.
  So Bob is obviously one of our mutual heroes, and I hope to see him 
soon and tell him that we have been talking about him today.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California. I 
actually went through the whole page of things we were going to talk 
about General Cardenas, but I have got a couple of others that I have 
got to mention.
  General Cardenas is one of the few individuals that can tree a person 
with a smile. There is not a day goes by that I do not get a call from 
General Cardenas, and he says, ``Duke, what have you and Duncan done 
for the veterans today?''
  I would be happy to announce also that he was very instrumental in 
San Diego. Widows and sometimes widowers have to drive clear up to 
Riverside, a 3\1/2\ hour drive, to visit the grave sites of their loved 
ones that they lost in different wars, the veterans. General Cardenas 
held some of the first meetings. We looked, we worked in a bipartisan 
way and ended up finding a spot at the former naval air station, 
Miramar, which now is MAS Miramar by the Marine Corps; and we found 
some 300 acres that will be a satellite for Fort Rosecrons that will 
provide over 200 grave sites.
  General Cardenas was instrumental and he was a driving force that 
pressed us and Tony Principi, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, to 
come up with this site; and he also was inducted into the Aerospace 
Walk of Honor, and as the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) 
mentioned, has done hundreds of things in the field of aerospace 
itself.
  But as a combat veteran and a veteran that has done a lot for space 
and for others, I was at General Yeager's 80th birthday a while back, 
and General Cardenas was prominent in that conversation at that meeting 
as well.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman has led into one of 
our mutual friends and a great hero, Chuck Yeager, a great hero for 
this century who came out of, as my Dad calls him, the citizen 
soldiers; and my dad had written recently about how people from the 
outdoors often have a penchant for the military because they learn how 
to shoot, they learn how to be vigilant, they learn how to be alert. 
And those qualities serve them well when they get into the military, 
and Chuck Yeager is one of those people.
  Where would my colleague place Chuck Yeager as a great fighter pilot 
and a great test pilot? He was a guy with both qualities.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, we had studied when I was a kid, we 
studied about General Yeager and his exploits; and the first time I 
actually met him was at the naval air station Miramar, and he gave a 
lecture. This was before I ever went to Vietnam and flew, and General 
Yeager talked about getting engagement with a MiG and then you sit 
there and pulled about six Gs over the corner, came over the top, came 
back around and pulled six Gs. Then it was Colonel Yeager when he was 
briefing us. One of the guys said, ``Colonel Yeager, why didn't you 
shoot this guy?'' Because this was me, this was me out in front.
  Mr. HUNTER. He is a man not without a sense of humor, also.

                              {time}  1845

  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. The second time I guess I had an engagement with 
General Yeager was the very first time I was able to join the American 
Fighter Aces Reunion. There had been no new fighter ace in almost 30 
years, and we had our first reunion in San Antonio when Willy and I 
came back from Vietnam. And the press came up to me and said, ``Duke, 
how do you feel about joining Joe Foss and Pappy Boyington and Chuck 
Yeager and all these different guys?'' And General Yeager was there. 
And the press guy said, look, if you and General Yeager would get into 
a dog fight, who would win? He wanted me to put down General Yeager. My 
answer was, ``General Yeager is not only a test pilot and a fighter 
pilot and a combat pilot, but he has done a million things I have not 
ever done before.
  So I would basically not answer his question. But after the press guy 
left, I looked at Chuck and said, ``General Yeager, I'll meet you at 
15,000 feet and I'll have your donkey.'' And his immediate response 
was, ``Bring it on, Duke,'' which you would expect from General Yeager.
  So this is one of the all-time greats that have contributed not just 
to combat aviation, but when you look at the first man to go 
supersonic, the first man in the X1 and the X1-A that set speed records 
of over 1600 miles an hour, he is right up there.
  Mr. HUNTER. My father sent some commentary about these citizen 
soldiers, and Chuck Yeager is one of these guys, because dad always 
felt that people with this outdoor background had a special rapport 
with the military. He says, and I am quoting, ``Hardened by frontier 
life, Americans have always been able to use their woodsmanship and 
facilities with firearms to win any wars that were thrust upon us.
  Organizations such as the Boy Scouts, citizen gun clubs, the American 
Rifle Association and veterans groups, have successfully resisted the 
efforts of those anti-gun forces that would like to disarm the average 
American. In the Spanish-American War and World Wars I and II, American 
forces have mobilized in short order and defeated their enemies. Our 
citizen soldiers are our greatest defense and are mobilized and used by 
those who make our Armed Forces their profession.''
  And if you read the exploits of Chuck Yeager, a kid that grew up in 
West Virginia hunting and fishing and tracking, it is very clear, and 
he reflects many times about how he used these developments in his 
instincts and his capabilities and his reflexes, and certainly his

[[Page 5233]]

shooting ability to our advantage when he was in combat. And when you 
go out among our troops that are deploying now for Desert Storm II, 
possibly, and for the war against terrorism, you talk to lots of people 
who have become proficient in firearms and in the outdoors, whether 
they are in infantry or in the Navy or in the aerial forces. There is a 
certain insight that that kind of a background gives you.
  Maybe Chuck Yeager is one of the greatest examples of that. And when 
I saw him the other day, he said that he had walked away from his last 
test piloting at Edwards Air Force Base in California just a few weeks 
before his 80th birthday. And I know my friend visited him on his 80th 
birthday.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. We went up to northern California for his 80th 
birthday. I guess being a fighter pilot is okay, because General Yeager 
is 80 years old and he is dating a 35-year-old woman that he met on a 
hiking trail in the Sierras. If you look at General Yeager, he looks 
like he is 40, not 80.
  I just hope that I have accomplished one-tenth of the things he has 
when I am 80 years old and still have the spirit of heart that he does.
  Mr. HUNTER. Let us move to another guy, whose picture my friend just 
gave me a couple of months ago, and who passed away. He was a great, 
great friend of ours, but what a great leader for America. Joe Foss.
  Joe Foss shot down over 20 aircraft in World War II. He was a great 
marine fighter pilot. He went back and became the governor of South 
Dakota. He was the commissioner of the American football League between 
1988 and 1990. In fact, I think you were one of the guys that urged him 
to run and he did and became the President of the National Rifle 
Association.
  And that takes me back to my dad's treatise to the effect that a lot 
of country boys become great military leaders and great pilots because 
of this sixth sense that they develop in the woods. Joe Foss is one of 
those guys. And that autographed picture you gave me of Joe Foss, that 
I have still on my wall, is very treasured, because Joe Foss passed 
away just a few weeks ago.
  What a great hero he was for this century. And that great story, the 
Bridges of Toko Ri that was about Korea, where James Michener talked 
about where Americans got these people that flew off these tiny 
carriers and went out and found the enemy and took them on, and then 
tried to find that little bitty postage stamp out there rocking in the 
middle of the ocean. And how extraordinary it was that at a time when 
the rest of us were living a life of comfort, people like that should 
come forward. That was Joe Foss, coming out of South Dakota. A great 
guy, bigger than life, a guy who had gotten in lots of rough and tumble 
situations, but a guy with an absolute heart of gold. Joe Foss. When 
did the gentleman first meet Joe?
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Well, as a kid, I had read about Pappy Boyington, 
Chuck Yeager and Joe Foss, but the first time I ever met Joe was, 
again, at the American Fighter Aces Reunion in San Antonio. And I covet 
that picture I gave the gentleman, because I never thought we would be 
without Joe. He was bigger than life. So I am going to have his wife, 
DeeDee, send me one of those pictures and sign it for Joe so I can hang 
it on my wall.
  I have a special memory of Joe Foss. He and I were inducted into the 
Riverside Aviation Hall of Fame together. And after the event, people 
in the audience were able to ask questions. There was an 8-year-old 
that stood up, and it was the first questioner of General Foss and 
myself, and his question was, ``General Foss, Duke Cunningham flew jets 
in Vietnam. You only flew propeller airplanes, didn't you?'' You could 
see the twinkle in General Foss's eye.
  He was a grandfatherly type guy, very strong Christian, no nonsense 
Christian. And so the little kid says, ``Well, General Foss, what does 
a propeller really do on an airplane?'' General Foss looked at the 8-
year-old and he said, ``Son, the propeller is put there to keep the 
pilot cool.'' The little kid shook his head, and General Foss looked at 
him and said, ``Son, I'm not lying to you. If it stops, you watch him 
sweat.''
  And that is the kind of individual Joe Foss was. He was not only good 
with aviators, and people in management as a governor, and head of the 
NRA and other issues, but he really related to children and fostered 
that kind of spirit.
  General Foss told me a story about when he was a little boy. He took 
his rifle that the gentleman referred to and he shot a light fixture 
off a telephone pole. When he came back home his father asked him what 
he shot today; squirrels? He said I shot a couple of things. His dad 
asked if he shot any squirrels, and he said, I shot a couple of 
squirrels, but he did not want to tell his dad about the light fixture. 
But when his dad pressed him, he says, well, I shot one of those little 
glass things on a telephone pole. His dad said, Joe, take your 22 and 
put it in the corner for 1 year. And he did not get to touch that rifle 
for 1 year.
  Joe drove his father's car, and he went out and dinged it. When he 
came back with a dent on it, Joe's father said, you do not drive that 
car for 1 year. So his father's discipline was a 1-year policy. So Joe 
said he grew up on the straight and narrow, but that is the kind of guy 
that Joe was. And if you talk to the American Fighter Aces, or 
basically anybody that knew Joe Foss, he ranks among the heroes and the 
great ones.
  Mr. HUNTER. Joe Foss, as the gentleman said, was inspirational to so 
many young people. He was born in 1915 in South Dakota and helped to 
run the family farm. In fact, he had to drop out of college to do that. 
But when he was 11 years old in South Dakota he got to meet Charles 
Lindbergh, and it was that inspiration and meeting the guy who had 
flown across the Atlantic and was such an American hero at that time 
that inspired him to himself become an aviator.
  So this is a great family of aviators that we have, and Joe, again, 
won the Medal of Honor. He shot down some 24 aircraft.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Twenty-six.
  Mr. HUNTER. Twenty-six aircraft. He was shot down himself on November 
7, 1942, and he was rescued the next day. So what a great hero, Joe 
Foss.
  But the gentleman that was a special guy, who has been to a number of 
events and community gatherings we have both been at, and that is Wally 
Schirra.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. The Honorable Wally Schirra.
  Mr. HUNTER. My favorite picture is a picture of you hunting pheasants 
with Wally Schirra. Tell us a little bit about that guy.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Well, Wally, like General Foss, like Chuck Yeager, 
like most of the greats, grew up hunting and fishing. He is an 
outdoorsman. And Wally and I were up in northern California hunting 
pheasants together, along with a whole group of our folks that go up 
there yearly. A guy named Ernie King set it up. He used to live in my 
district but now lives up in Oregon.
  If you knew Wally Schirra, he looks like an English Lord when he 
hunts. He never buys anything. He used to work for Monsanto and they 
gave him every stitch of clothes he had. He has these little Lord 
jackets, these little Lord hats, these little Lord hunting pants with 
the ruffles, and the little shoes and booties. And of course we make 
fun of him, but he does not care. Well, his little Lord hat fell on the 
ground and one of the guys threw it up in the air and it landed on the 
end of my shotgun. Wally looked at me and said, ``Duke, you wouldn't.''
  So I pulled the trigger, and of course it blew a big hole in his hat. 
It was the most expensive hat I have ever paid for in my life. The 
thing cost about $200. But it was worth every minute, especially when 
Wally wore it for the rest of the day like that.
  Mr. HUNTER. Well, Wally, that guy whose hat you blew up, was one of 
the original seven astronauts. And he was the only astronaut to have 
flown on all three space craft, Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. And what 
is remarkable, and maybe this was caught to some degree in that movie 
The Right Stuff, which had a lot of Chuck Yeager in it, but also had 
some astronauts, was that a

[[Page 5234]]

lot of Americans in aviation, who did not take themselves too 
seriously, and Wally Schirra was one of those guys and still is one of 
those guys, and who had a great sense of humor, did very serious 
things. Here is a guy who was a pilot, a naval officer, carrier-based 
fighter pilot and test pilot, and engaged in this very serious pursuit 
in which a lot of people were killed.
  After they came back from war, people like Richard Bong, who shot 
down more planes in the Pacific theater than anyone, was killed on his 
first test flight trying to fly a new experimental aircraft. So these 
Americans, like Wally, like Chuck Yeager, like others, and I think we 
are reminded of this in the wake of the events with Columbia, live in a 
world which is very dangerous, and in which a lot of their friends and 
colleagues have died. And in doing that, they have pushed American 
capability and technology, and we are able to keep ourselves free to a 
much further height than we could have ever achieved if we did not have 
these great people.
  So Wally Schirra is a great member of our San Diego community, and I 
think my colleague painted a great picture of Wally. He probably 
treasures that hat that you shot.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Well, I have a better picture of Wally. Because 
General Yeager and myself and Wally Schirra had a satellite feed that 
one of the television systems set up, and we were piped in basically 
into high schools across the United States, where young people 
interested in aviation could call in and ask General Yeager, Wally or 
myself questions. I did not get many questions. They wanted to talk to 
Wally and General Yeager.
  One young man called in and said, ``Mr. Schirra, when you flew 
Apollo, were you afraid?'' And Wally looked into the camera and he 
said, ``Son, you're sitting there in Apollo, an aircraft with a million 
moving parts, all of them put there by the lowest bidder. Do you think 
I had any reason for concern?'' But that, again, like when Joe Foss 
talked to the 8-year-old or Wally Schirra relates to children, they 
never forget where their roots came from and they speak to the youth to 
get them interested in math and science and aviation and spacecraft.
  It has been an honor for me just to walk among these men. I am an 
American, I am a man, but I walk among heroes.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, there is another guy who preceded all these 
people that we have talked about. He is a guy who, in this city, was 
actually taken to court-martial at one point because he told the United 
States, when he was a U.S. officer, a General officer, he announced to 
the world and to the United States that we were not ready for war and 
that we needed to be doing more. And, of course, sometimes when you 
tell the truth, that gets you in trouble. But in the 1930s, we were not 
ready for war.
  This guy's name was Billy Mitchell. In fact, one time I was carrying 
on about Billy Mitchell and how great he was at warning us to get ready 
for this new age of air power, and the gentleman from New Hampshire 
(Mr. Bass), one of our great colleagues, asked me to quit lecturing him 
on Billy Mitchell because, he said, Billy Mitchell was my uncle. And he 
knew a lot more about Billy Mitchell than I did.
  But Billy Mitchell took a tour of the world in the 1920s and came 
back reported to the Coolidge administration about where he thought our 
vulnerabilities lay. He would go out and analyze scenarios in which he 
thought we might be attacked.

                              {time}  1900

  More than a decade before Pearl Harbor, he predicted at some point we 
would be attacked by a low-level, early-dawn attack by aircraft from 
Japan at Pearl Harbor. The only thing that he also, in predicting what 
they might try to do, part of the blueprint that they did not follow, 
luckily, was that they did not blow up the fuel depots which he 
predicted that any enemy that attacked Pearly Harbor, that they would 
try to blow up.
  He warned this country that we lived in an age of air power. He came 
back from this tour of a very dangerous, and it is relevant for us to 
remember now that we stand on the ledge of this new century in what 
appears to be a very dangerous world. Billy Mitchell warned us that we 
had entered the age of air power, and that the United States had better 
become dominant in air power because if we did not, we would be losing 
future engagements.
  I recently looked back at the aircraft that were flown in World War 
I, and apparently most of those aircraft were French and British 
aircraft. We were not really in the age of air power.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I do not think that the French ones worked.
  Mr. HUNTER. The French aircraft were unusual. Most of them were 
parked. We will talk about that later.
  Billy Mitchell gave an extraordinary warning to this country. He was 
not received well at the White House. There were a lot of budget hawks 
that did not want to spend a bunch of money on military equipment. 
After all, the 1930s were supposed to be a very peaceful time. So they 
gave him short-shrift, and he became more and more insistent in his 
demands that the United States gear up for what he saw as a coming 
storm.
  He made statements to the effect that we were unprepared for war, so 
they court martialed him. In the movie Gary Cooper played Billy 
Mitchell. He sacrificed his own career to wake America up. I have often 
thought about if Billy Mitchell came back and told us we were entering 
the age of air power and we had better become proficient at it or we 
would be in dire straits.
  Similarly, we have now entered the age of missiles, and now that we 
have seen North Korea shooting the TD-2 missile with the capability of 
reaching the west coast of the United States, when we look at their 
unstable leadership, I am reminded of the fact that we are deep in the 
age of missiles, and we need to be awakened, just as America needed to 
be awakened by Billy Mitchell in the 1920s and 1930s that we were in 
the age of air power; and we need to be awakened that we are deeply in 
the age of missiles, and we better have the ability to shoot down 
missiles.
  Billy Mitchell had this extraordinary career in which he not only 
shot down enemy aircraft and was a leader in aviation, but he also 
spoke out. I think that is another trademark of these great aviators 
that we have talked about. Joe Foss spoke out. Bob Cardenas is still 
speaking out. Chuck Yeager spoke out very strongly and forcefully. And 
Billy Mitchell was also a guy that really spoke out.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Billy Mitchell started flying in 1916. This was the 
time that Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Ace flew. He predicted these 
things that were going to happen in 1942 with Japan. He was also looked 
at being court martialed. He said if we did not have our air power, the 
Navy would be decimated without air power covering the top of it. One 
of the admirals said, I will stand on top of this battleship while you 
attack it, and Billy went out and single-handedly sunk this destroyer, 
which also showed air power, if we go into any war without air power, 
the Navy is very, very vulnerable, or without missile cover. Billy 
Mitchell is among the greats that we talk about.
  One of the things that I would like to talk about before we move to 
the next one, just to be a great name does not mean that you are a 
hero, but I will tell Members the names of some real heroes. Willy 
White, when I was in Vietnam, jumped up on my airplane and he said, 
``Lieutenant Cunningham, we got our MiG today, didn't we?'' And Willy 
was telling me that they felt part of a team.
  Last night I was watching television, and on there was a movie that 
was very moving. It was called ``Glory.'' It was about a white colonel 
that was killed in the battle of this movie, but he led black troops in 
the 54th Regiment, and these troops were asked to fight against a fort. 
First of all, the general that was talking to the colonel said you have 
not slept for 2 days and the colonel said, True, General, we have not 
slept for 2 days, but they have fight left in them. They have 
character, strength of heart, and you should have seen us just 2 days 
ago.

[[Page 5235]]

  The black soldiers that night sat around a camp fire knowing that 
they were going to lead this attack. They volunteered to lead this 
attack which was going to be the highest casualties. As a matter of 
fact, in ``Glory'' the black soldiers under this command and their 
leader took 50 percent casualties. They never did take the fort, but 
the point was that one of the soldiers said, if I should fall, who will 
carry the standard, meaning the flag. A voice quipped out, I will, sir, 
and then, I will, sir. Seven different times that flag fell and each 
time a black soldier picked that flag up and went forward knowing that 
they would probably be killed.
  When we talk about greats and aviation greats and heroes in this 
world, I think some of the things that have happened in our own history 
are sad; but when I think about like Denzel Washington who played in 
the movie, had a difficult time speaking, with tears, he said, I love 
the 54th. This is my family, and we are men.
  That is the spirit of the fighting men and women that we honor here 
tonight, not just with General Yeager and Billy Mitchell and Wally 
Schirra, but with men like this that have given their utmost. And 
today, when we are looking at Iraq, and our men and women are stationed 
in the Middle East and all over this world, we should pay them an 
homage and honor what they are doing for us here today.
  Mr. HUNTER. That reminds me of something that President Reagan said, 
and I am thinking of all those troops wearing the Desert Storm 
camouflage in the Middle East, you can go to France, you can never 
become a Frenchman. You can go to Germany, and you can never become a 
German. You can go to Mexico, and you can never become a Mexican. But 
you come to the United States, and you become an American. All of us 
are united behind the American flag, and it has been the greatest mixer 
of people and the greatest set of common values and common ground that 
free people could rally around in the history of the world.
  I think it is appropriate that you brought this story to us tonight 
because that is the story of our country. I think that there is no 
greater force to bring people together in this country than the U.S. 
military. It brings people together, whether they have titles behind 
their names or have gone to universities of renown or have lots of 
money or no money. It brings them all together for a common cause, and 
it provides a line of communication and touching and rapport with their 
colleague standing next to them, who may have come from the other side 
of the country.
  I want to mention two other people, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam 
Johnson), our great friend whom we honored the other day with a 
resolution. As a POW he was an Air Force guy who did a great job, and 
he is such a leader in Congress today.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Does the gentleman from California know what is put 
on the bottom of a Coke bottle at an Air Force base?
  Mr. HUNTER. No, but I think you are going to tell me.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Open other end.
  Mr. HUNTER. We are going to have calls on that. There is another guy 
I want to mention and that is Duke Cunningham because you have come to 
this body with lots of stature that you won on the battlefield, and you 
went through a lot of the same feelings that a lot of those guys are 
feeling right now getting ready for action in what could be a very 
difficult theater.
  Mr. Speaker, my colleague is a man who was heavily decorated with the 
Navy Cross and the Purple Heart and lots of Flying Crosses, and we 
appreciate the gentleman's great service to the country. Having the 
gentleman here to bring the common sense and practicality of operating 
aircraft to this body, which often just sees aircraft and services in 
terms of numbers and reflections on pages, has been a great service to 
our Congress. My colleague is the last hero that I want to point to 
today, but not least.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I remember attacking a site and the guy on the ground 
said hit the purple smoke, and the purple smoke was their position. And 
it was guys like the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) and the 
rangers in Vietnam that were trying to scamper down the back side of a 
hill; and I remember thinking I am glad that I am in this nice air-
conditioned airplane at 20,000 feet, not scampering down on the ground 
like the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter).
  Mr. Speaker, it is all relative. Men like the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Sam Johnson) was a prisoner of war for 7 years. Half of that time 
was in solitary confinement. He was leader of the Air Force 
Thunderbirds, and what a marvelous representative he is here.
  When Americans hold up their heads and look to heroes, we know that 
Mexican Americans, Hispanics, had more per capita Medal of Honor 
winners than any other group. Because of their values and defense of 
national security and taking care of their families and so on, that the 
Tuskegee Airmen, during very difficult times in our country with 
racism, fought through those barriers. Not a single bomber went down 
that was escorted by a Tuskegee Airman, and those are the kinds of 
things that I am talking about.
  We have a friend in Vietnam that took almost 6 years to knit an 
American flag together to have it like the Speaker has here tonight so 
people could celebrate when a few POWs got together. The Vietnamese 
guards came in, saw the POW without his shirt, and ripped it apart and 
they took him out and brutally beat him for hours. They did not think 
he would survive. They comforted him on the side. He had a broken jaw 
and internal injuries. And so they started conducting their meeting, 
and there this broken-bodied POW had drug himself to the center of the 
floor and started grabbing those bits of thread that had been shred up 
so he could knit another American flag. That is the spirit that we are 
embodying here tonight, from the 54th in ``Glory'' to the Tuskegee 
Airmen, to the Hispanics that contributed, to the Filipinos who gave 
your father the flag, I believe, which flew over Baguio when the 
Japanese took over Baguio which you donated to a museum.
  This is the American spirit, and this is the spirit that we will 
overcome regardless of what Saddam Hussein does.
  Mr. HUNTER. This is the picture of General Bob Cardenas in 1949 
flying the flying Wing right over this Capitol. I thank the gentleman 
for letting me be part of this Special Order tonight.

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