[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 23544-23545]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             VETERANS' DAY

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute and 
recognize our Nation's veterans. Too often, the sacrifices of our 
Nation's brave men and women of the Armed Forces go unnoticed and 
underappreciated. I wish to take a moment now to share a recent 
experience I had with some of New Jersey's Vietnam Veterans.
  On November 11, 2004, I was honored to participate in a Veterans' Day 
Ceremony hosted by the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in 
Holmdel, New Jersey. At this ceremony, I was touched by the words of 
Major Frank M. McDonough, Esq., a retired member of the United States 
Marine Corps. Major McDonough has written a moving piece about what it 
means to be a veteran.
  Mr. President, in honor of the sacrifice of our Nation's veterans, I 
ask unanimous consent that Major McDonough's written statement be 
printed in the Congressional Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                           November 11, 2004

 (By Frank M. McDonough, Esq. Major, United States Marine Corps, Ret.)

       The Marine CH-46 helicopter swept high and wide over the 
     clouds of smoke, shrapnel, and exploding shells.
       Mayhem spewed from the burning ammunition dump. It had been 
     struck the night before by a rocket launched by some of the 
     40,000 enemy troops surrounding the miserably exposed plateau 
     encampment.
       As the Crew Chief shouted debarkation instructions over the 
     din of the rotors, the Marines craned around in their canvas 
     benches to see the mile-long, half-mile wide combat base 
     below, through the glassless chopper windows. For most it 
     would be their first combat experience. For the 26-year-old 
     Lieutenant this was neither his first nor his last trip ``in-
     country,'' but it would be the longest 77 days of his life.
       Suddenly the helicopter dropped like a stone toward the 
     airstrip and the Crew Chief was screaming, ``Get out! Get 
     out!'' as the Marines grabbed packs and seabags and rushed to 
     the lowered ramp in the rear of the rapidly descending bird.
       They tumbled out, ass over teakeatle, several feet in the 
     air, as the aircraft started to roll and rise, never actually 
     having touched the ground.
       As instructed, the passengers rushed to the waiting 
     drainage ditch at the edge of the metallic runway. Mortars 
     and rockets struck all around; and the din was so great that 
     they never heard the safe departure of the big dirty green 
     bird that had just deposited them in the middle of no man's 
     land.
       Nor did they care; for this was run for life.
       The Lieutenant streaked across the landing strip as fast as 
     his legs would move, carrying the 80 pound seabag behind him 
     a protection against the flying shards of aluminum runway 
     matting mixed with shrapnel, dirt and other debris . . . but 
     ready to abandon if necessary.
       The dense clouds of smoke and loud clanging sounds which 
     deadened his ears and shrouded his movement could not protect 
     him from the flying death around him.
       But in seconds he was in the trench, on his face, in the 
     dusty red clay that he would live in, bathe in, eat in, sleep 
     in, and wear for many weeks to come.
       The crump, crump, crump of the deadly explosives slowly 
     subsided with the disappearance of the chopper behind the 
     hills.
       Soon, there was absolute silence.
       Navy Medical Corpsmen from Charlie Med, the makeshift 
     hospital across the road . . . conveniently located next to 
     the equally makeshift mortuary . . . started working their 
     way along the trench . . . backs and shoulders bent . . . 
     bodies crouched to avoid enemy snipers . . . making sure that 
     everyone was okay.
       The Lieutenant checked his moving parts. They seemed to be 
     all there. Even his seabag made it unscathed. Then he looked 
     up for the first time since hitting the ground at Khe Sahn.
       Directly in front of him was a large sign. In scarlet and 
     gold . . . the Marine Corps' colors . . . a sign which 
     pointed him to his destination.
       ``1st Battalion, 13th Marines, Turn Right and Run like 
     Hell.''
       It was combat humor at its best.
       According to military records, since 1775, 2 million men 
     and women have given their lives for our country; men and 
     women of all colors, religions, and beliefs. They wore many 
     uniforms over the decades: some blue, some red, some gray . . 
     . some green, white, khaki; and some of the various colors of 
     camouflage.
       Some had no uniforms but fought anyway; and some performed 
     their service behind the enemy's lines in the clothing of the 
     day, hopeful that they would be protected by their anonymity.
       Some were farmers; some city kids. Some had never seen a 
     pair of boots before they joined; others like me signed up 
     with long hair, motorcycle boots and way too much attitude.
       They were young, old, married and single. They were poor; 
     and they were rich. Most were free; some were freed slaves. 
     Some were paid to serve in the place of others. Some 
     volunteered and some were conscripts.
       Shanghaied, they would tell you.
       There were summer soldiers who left in fall to harvest 
     their crops. Others served for a fixed number of years; and 
     there were many who served their entire lives. There were too 
     many whose entire lives were not very entire.
       When they were in, they spent much of their time 
     complaining; but when they got out they spend much of their 
     time bragging . . . about where they went and who they went 
     with . . . although not very often about what they did.
       In fact, in the Marine Corps we used to say that a Marine 
     wasn't happy unless he was bitching; and most couldn't wait 
     until they got out. Yet check out all the proud United States 
     Marine Corps decals on the cars traveling along the Garden 
     State Parkway.
       One thing they shared. No matter what their origins or 
     their social status, there was no telling them apart in the 
     trenches of France, the frozen fields of Pennsylvania, the 
     steamy islands of the Pacific, the bloody battlefields of 
     Spotsylvania, the deadly skies over Korea, the tropical scrub 
     of San Juan hill, or the boiling waters of the South China 
     Sea.
       They were one.
       Some were recognized for their heroism.
       In the beginning by receiving an award called the Badge of 
     Military Merit, created by our first Commander-in-Chief.
       In 1932, that badge became known as the Purple Heart. It 
     eventually was emblazoned with George's image and restricted 
     to those who shed their blood in the service of their 
     country.

[[Page 23545]]

       Tens of thousands of Purple Hearts have been awarded for 
     wounds received in battle. Too many thousands never lived to 
     see theirs; and would happily have done without.
       And there is another award that goes back to the early 
     years. Presented since the Civil war, it is called the Medal 
     of Honor. There have been 3,459 of those medals presented for 
     3,454 separate heroic actions.
       The earliest Medal of Honor was presented for an action 
     against Native-Americans in 1861. Ironically, since 1861, 22 
     Native-Americans have received the Medal for their own 
     valorous actions in defense of a country that once seemingly 
     sought to exterminate them.
       I have known many who were awarded the first medal, and 
     four who were awarded the second.
       Despite their heroism and suffering . . . or perhaps 
     because of it . . . I really don't know . . . they seemed no 
     different than the thousand others I served with, and the 
     many thousands more that we have all heard or read about.
       They all served their country . . . in good times and bad . 
     . . in peacetime and in war . . . with valor and distinction.
       At Valley Forge, they wrapped rags around their frozen feet 
     then marched to take Trenton; 175 years later they wrapped 
     rags around their frozen feet then fought their way out of 
     the Chosin Reservoir.
       In 1805 they marched across 600 miles of burning desert to 
     destroy the Barbary Pirates at Tripoli; 178 years later, not 
     that far from Tripoli, they died in a barracks in Beirut.
       Still they would not be deterred. And only a few years 
     later, they freed one European people from a tyrannical 
     butcher; and a Middle Eastern country from a demented 
     invader.
       But in Yemen they simply made a goodwill port call and 17 
     paid the ultimate price.
       And in Somalia they tried to help a starving people they 
     didn't even know . . . and had probably never heard of; and 
     they paid yet again.
       They jumped out of airplanes into the dead of night at Ste. 
     Mere-Eglise; and a few miles away they scaled the deadly 
     cliffs of Normandy with the bodies of their buddies drifting 
     in the surf below.
       At Midway, they brought a thousand year old Empire to the 
     beginning of its end.
       In 1865, a women cut off her hair, donned a soldier's 
     uniform, and fought alongside her compatriots as a man. She 
     was simply following the example of an earlier heroine who 
     joined the battlefield right here in Monmouth County. More 
     than 1.7 million women have served in the military since.
       Some nursed our fighters in the jungles, in the freezing 
     cold, and aboard ships under kamikaze attack. And not only do 
     they still serve in tents, bomb craters, and blown out 
     buildings around the world; but they now command units in 
     Iraq and fly choppers in Afghanistan.
       Some military personnel carry no weapons and wear no 
     scrubs, but use a bible, the Torah or the Quran, to minister 
     to their fellow soldiers. One from Staten Island earned the 
     Medal of Honor of his heroic Chaplain's service.
       And let's not forget the 6,000 Merchant Marines and their 
     700 ships lost during World War II.
       In five years, my immigrant family from Scotland and 
     Ireland sent seven men and women off to fight for their 
     adopted country. It is something we as a people do. We rarely 
     question why. We just do.
       Now, one of my sons is in a place called Fallujah, while 
     his brother launches fighter jets from the Abraham Lincoln 
     somewhere in the Pacific.
       I would never ask them to do this. I certainly didn't even 
     encourage them. It is the only thing in my entire life that 
     has ever brought me fear! But is their chosen destiny; and 
     like all others before them, they just do.
       In just my lifetime, I can think of a number of heroes who 
     could have avoided serving, or flown a desk in the rear, but 
     chose not to. One was the son of a legendary Marine General 
     who had earned five Navy Crosses in combat. The younger 
     Marine came home a double amputee, his life so shattered that 
     he ultimately died by his own hand.
       One was a famous baseball player who left his team not 
     once, but twice, to fight for his country in not one, but two 
     wars. And he came back to his beloved Red Sox to finish his 
     career.
       One was the son of the future Chief of Naval Operations, 
     the highest rank in the Navy. He probably could have gotten 
     any job he wanted, but he went into combat anyway; and came 
     back to die of Agent Orange.
       Another was the son and grandson of two Naval Heroes, but 
     he spent 8 years in the Hanoi Hilton.
       And then, of course, there was the son of the former 
     Ambassador to Great Britain. He didn't have to go either, but 
     he chose to be a PT boat skipper; and spent the rest of his 
     too-short life in excruciating pain.
       They all could have found a way out, but didn't. Not even 
     the young Marine Lance Corporal I met in I Corps who had a 
     Columbia medical degree in his resume, but he chose to fight 
     his war, at the front, on the ground, as a grunt.
       Like that young Lance Corporal, they had a belief in 
     themselves, in their creed, in their country, and many times 
     . . . more often than not . . . in their cause.
       If nothing else, they learned to believe in their fellow 
     soldiers and to serve them . . . to the death if necessary.
       Today, we celebrate all veterans, those alive and among us, 
     those who have gone on to their reward, and those still 
     serving.
       It matters not whether in peace or in war. If in war, it 
     matters not what the outcome. It is the man and the woman 
     that we honor.
       We can do no less than one man . . . not of this country . 
     . . did in honoring that legacy.
       He was a 30 year old Vietnamese Squad Leader. A member of 
     the 320th Division of the People's Army of Vietnam during one 
     of the most trying periods in a ten-year war, the hallowed 
     memory of which surrounds us here today in this poignant 
     Vietnam Veteran's Memorial.
       He was the enemy!
       After the war he went back to farming. But then, in 1996, 
     at the age of 58, he walked into the US Army POW/MIA office 
     in Hanoi to tell his story.
       While serving North Vietnam in uniform in 1968, he found 
     the body of a dead American Marine. He buried it in a bomb 
     crater. But he never forgot.
       So he lead the MIA team to the remains, which were then 
     recovered and returned to the Marine's home community just 
     two months ago, some 30 years after the fall of Saigon.
       Now I can tell you from personal experience that the spring 
     of 1968 was one of worst periods in the war.
       Yet this soldier took the time to bury his enemy. And then, 
     almost thirty years later, report the location to his former 
     enemies.
       That kind of respect is the kind of respect we see all too 
     little of in this fast-paced, too distracted, self-absorbed, 
     politically-riven society of ours.
       But it is the kind of respect we are here today to show our 
     men and women, in or out of uniform, living and dead, still 
     serving or not.
       They need no medals. They need no special proclamations. 
     They need no special treatment. For they stand out in their 
     own merit, on their own sacrifices, on their own heroism, and 
     on their own unequalled accomplishments.
       But we stand here today anyway. For they are the reason we 
     can do so; the reason that we enjoy the right to do so. The 
     reason we can be proud of our nation; and the reason that, 
     like the Vietnamese soldier-farmer, we can respect who they 
     are.
       To paraphrase a well known writer and broadcaster, we are 
     here today because they are the greatest of all our 
     generations!

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