[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Page 25555]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  IN HONOR OF THE ARLES GREENE FAMILY

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I have a few words before we adjourn 
for the holidays. This isn't the first year that there will be a lot of 
empty places at our holiday dinner tables. Even if our own table 
doesn't have a missing spot, we know a neighbor or a friend whose 
brother, mother, or husband is away fighting to keep us safe at home. 
These empty places remind us of the generations of men an women who 
have sacrificed to keep us free so that we can, in freedom, celebrate 
those holidays that are important to each of us.
  Today I rise to honor the service of the family of Arles Greene of 
Hendersonville, TN. Arles's family has a lot of empty places around 
their dinner table in the Second World War. Arles's father Eugene W. 
Greene, his uncle William Edwin McDavid and friend Ed Gallbreath, Jr., 
all served some 60 years ago.
  Ed Galbreath, Jr., a friend of Arles's family, joined the Air Force 
in February 1944, during his senior year of high school. He flew 23\1/
2\ missions as a gunman, operated a VHF radio, and worked the radar 
jammers. He survived four crashes. In his last crash, out of a B-24 
Tiger Shark, he landed in Berlin where he was taken prisoner. He spent 
months in confinement with some 6,000 other prisoners of war until he 
was liberated by the Russian Army. For his bravery, Sergeant Galbreath 
received many awards, including the Air Medal with three Oak Leaf 
Clusters, the Purple Heart, the P.O.W. Medal, and the Parachute Club 
Medal. His understanding of those prisons shaped his many future 
contributions to his community of Goodlettsville, TN.
  In October of 1943, Arles's uncle, PVT William Edwin McDavid, left 
Moccasin Gap, Virginia, to serve in the 38th Infantry Division. Private 
McDavid was just 18 years old when he served in Normandy, the 
Rhineland, the Ardennes, and northern France. While fighting in the 
Battle of the Bulge on New Year's Eve of 1944, McDavid suffered 
frostbitten hands that ended his infantry career. Private McDavid's 
service and bravery was recognized with the award of a European-African 
Theatre Ribbon with four Bronze Battle Stars, a Bronze Star Medal, and 
a Purple Heart.
  Arles's father, Eugene Greene, began his career with the U.S. Army in 
July 1944. The oldest of 12 children, he enlisted at 18 years old with 
the Hancock County Draft Board. He served with the U.S. Army infantry, 
2nd Division, 9th Regiment that assisted in the liberation of Nazi 
concentration camps in the spring of 1945. Greene and his unit 
liberated the death camps at Dachau. He remembers finding only 25 
people alive at the sub-camp where he shot a lock off a prison gate 
setting them free. Those prisoners rushed to drink the milk of Holstein 
cattle pastured nearby.
  Eugene met General Patton shortly before his death. He says of 
Patton, ``He was over there to get a job done, and that's what he 
did.'' Eugene Greene returned with may memories of the war. Most of 
these he buried in the fields of his Tennessee farm, but some lived 
on--the faith he had in his fellow soldiers, in his family, and in God.
  I have had a lot to say about the importance of teaching American 
history and civics to help our children grow up understanding what it 
means to be an American. The teacher in me thinks of this tribute as an 
assignment. I hope when we gather around our holiday tables this season 
we pause to take stock, like Arles did, to answer what our own families 
have contributed to America's history and to answering the question of 
what it means to be an American.
  Thank you for allowing me to honor my friend Arles Greene and his 
family.

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