[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 7988-7989]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       HONORING OUR ARMED FORCES

  Mr. FRIST. Madam President, we are now 12 days into Operation Iraqi 
Freedom. As I mentioned yesterday, I had the opportunity to visit the 
post of the 101st Airborne Division this weekend. It was a remarkable 
opportunity for me, and I wish to share with you a couple of my 
thoughts on that visit.
  Our troops over the last 12 days have advanced 220 miles and now are 
sitting about 50 miles outside of Baghdad. We are all exposed, on the 
television and through our briefings, to the repetitive pounding of 
military targets day and night throughout Iraq. The key point, I 
believe, is that we do keep building our momentum both in Iraq and in 
America.
  We have achieved many key objectives, and we will--there is no 
question--we will achieve our ultimate objective, and that is to disarm 
Saddam Hussein and to liberate the Iraqi people from his oppressive 
rule.
  I am confident about that for so many reasons, but a lot of it has 
become real to me in a very personal sense after my visit to the 101st 
Airborne Division. For example, SP John G. Young is assigned to the A 
Company, 8th Battalion, 101st Airborne Division. He left Fort Campbell 
on March 1 of this year for Kuwait. He is crew chief on a CH-47 
somewhere in the Iraqi desert. He is newly married. He is expecting a 
child in a few months and is doing an extraordinary job in Operation 
Iraqi Freedom. We thank him, we thank his mother, and we thank his wife 
for their courage.
  At the 101st Airborne Division, Karyn, my wife, and Jonathan, my son, 
and I attended church services with the spouses and children of the 
Fort Campbell 101st Airborne Division. There are 50 chaplains as part 
of the 101st Airborne Division and 46 of those chaplains are overseas 
in Iraq and Kuwait. Seeing these families and the faces of these very 
young children as the pastor gathered them around the pulpit and came 
down and sat on the floor with the children asking them what their 
impressions were, what they pray for--the children were very young, 2, 
3, 4, up to about 7 years of age.
  One said: I pray for my daddy who is somewhere in the desert.
  Another little girl raised her hand as they sat, about 20 of them, 
around the pastor, and said: I pray that Saddam Hussein quits doing bad 
things to other people.
  The innocence, the understanding, and the wisdom of these young 
children was very apparent.
  I also had a chance to talk to Michele Schumer, whose husband is a 
member of the Special Forces and is currently deployed in Iraq. Michele 
is the mother of a child in kindergarten and has another child on the 
way.
  We talked to Adra Barna, a mother of 3-year-old twin girls, who 
clearly had her hands full as we watched her manage them during the 
church service. Her husband is deployed in Iraq as well.
  I talked to Julie Sparkman. She and her husband are newlyweds. It is 
hard for anyone at any point to be separated, but to be separated 
shortly after marriage clearly introduces all sorts of feelings that we 
all can share with Julie and her husband. Having just been married, 
imagine the fear when there was that first grenade attack at Camp 
Pennsylvania: Was my husband involved in that or not? Was he injured or 
not? He was not, but again, we can personalize in many ways the 
experiences that result from the tremendous service of these young men 
and women.
  Above all, these families are patriotic. I thought the atmosphere 
would be very somber. In truth, it was very

[[Page 7989]]

upbeat, optimistic, and energetic. These young spouses are so proud of 
their husbands being able to serve all of us and able to literally put 
their lives on the line for those causes of freedom, democracy, and 
peace.
  In closing, the families of Fort Campbell did ask me to share with 
the President their support and their prayers for the tremendous job he 
is doing as Commander in Chief. They are concerned about their loved 
ones but proud they are able to serve the United States of America.
  I yield the floor.

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