[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11534-11535]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    THE PASSING OF A GREAT AMERICAN SOLDIER--ARMY COLONEL DAVID H. 
                               HACKWORTH

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I was very sad to learn that Colonel 
Hackworth had died on May 4, 2005, in Tijuana, Mexico.
  Tijuana is the place where Colonel Hackworth chose to make his last 
stand. He went there to fight one last battle. He had a particularly 
deadly form of cancer that spread. He went to Mexico, hoping for a 
miracle with an experimental drug treatment program.
  Just before leaving his home in Connecticut for the last time in 
January 2005, he sent me one final message:

       Give Senator Grassley my best. Have run out of conventional 
     options re my cancer. Got until March to find a solution. Off 
     to Mexico to see if we can't out Gee this monster. I am not 
     sweating my final orders from Headquarters. It has been a fun 
     ride. Plan on being planted in Arlington.

  ``Out-Geeing the G'' was one of Colonel Hackworth's favorite 
expressions.
  He invented the term while leading troops in combat during the 
Vietnam war. He told his troops that they could beat the Viet Cong by 
using the guerrillas' own mobile, hit-and-run tactics. ``We are going 
to do what they do but just do it better,'' he said. `` We out-gee the 
G.''
  ``Out-geeing the G'' was the heart and soul of Colonel Hackworth's 
brand of soldiering.
  Sadly, Colonel Hackworth was not able to ``out-Gee'' the enemy this 
time.
  Colonel Hackworth began his military career just up the coast from 
Tijuana--in Santa Monica, CA.
  At the age of 10, after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, he worked as 
a shoeshine boy at a military post there where a group of soldiers 
adopted him as a mascot. They had a special uniform made for him to 
wear. Both his parents died before his first birthday.
  At this point in his life, Colonel Hackworth said: ``I knew my 
destiny. Nothing would be better than to be a soldier.''
  You can't utter the name David Hackworth without also saying the word 
soldier in the same breath. He was a ``soldier's'' soldier.
  He was a soldier from the day he put on that special uniform in Santa 
Monica to the moment he died. He may have taken off his uniform after 
publicly denouncing the Vietnam war on national TV in 1971, but he 
continued to soldier until the very end of his life.
  I know that Colonel Hackworth was a highly respected combat veteran. 
I know he distinguished himself as a leader of troops in the field in 
Korea and Vietnam. I know he was awarded a large number of combat 
decorations for valor.
  Colonel Hackworth was a true American hero.
  But I do not want to leave my colleagues with a false impression.
  I did not know Colonel Hackworth when he was fighting wars and 
winning medals for valor. I have only read about that part of his life. 
I did not meet him until much later--after he had started a new career.
  I came to know Colonel Hackworth after he became a reporter and began 
covering the Pentagon.
  He was still a soldier all right--but a different kind of soldier.
  Colonel Hackworth had become what I would call a brave-hearted 
soldier for the truth.
  When I met him, he had taken off his uniform. He was fighting a 
different kind of war. He was a soldier in civilian clothes. But he 
still had a mission. He wanted to bring truth, justice, and 
accountability to military headquarters--the Pentagon. He wanted to 
shed some light on what he perceived as gross incompetence and 
corruption on the part of some senior officers.
  He was a contributing editor and reporter for Newsweek Magazine and 
syndicated columnist.
  Colonel Hackworth and I shared a small piece of common ground--
watchdogging the Pentagon.
  From the moment when I was first elected to the Senate, I have worked 
very hard to ferret out fraud, waste, and abuse at the Pentagon and 
stop it. I do it because I don't want to see a single tax dollar 
wasted.
  Colonel Hackworth attacked the very same problem but from a different 
angle.
  As in everything he did, he always looked at a problem from a common 
soldier's perspective.
  As I said, his main concern was incompetence and corruption among 
some senior officers in the Pentagon. He called them ``perfumed 
princes.'' These were some of the same officers he saw come and go in 
Vietnam. They came to Vietnam to get their ``tickets punched.'' They 
got their ``tickets punched'' by commanding a battalion or brigade for 
a shortened tour of duty before rotating home to the Pentagon for 
promotion.
  To the hardcore soldier like Colonel Hackworth, ``ticket punching'' 
in Vietnam translated into unnecessary casualties on the battlefield. 
The wasting of one soldier's life produced real fury inside this man. 
He could not--and would not--tolerate it.
  One illustrative incident, which occurred in Vietman, is described in 
his book ``About Face.''

[[Page 11535]]

  During a very intense combat operation, a ``perfumed prince'' riding 
in a helicopter overhead issued an order to a unit under Colonel 
Hackworth's command--without Colonel Hackworth's knowledge or approval. 
That order resulted in a significant loss of life in one of Colonel 
Hackworth's units.
  Colonel Hackworth believed that those casualties were avoidable and 
unnecessary.
  When he returned to home base, he sought out that officer, put a 45 
caliber weapon to his head, and threatened to kill him if he ever did 
anything like that again.
  That is Colonel Hackworth's own account of what happened on that day 
so long ago.
  Colonel Hackworth loved his troops above all else and would go to any 
length to protect them from harm and abuse.
  His lifelong commitment to the common soldier was the driving force 
behind the stories he produced as a reporter with Newsweek and other 
publications.
  In Colonel Hackworth's mind, the terrible loss of life in Vietnam had 
its origins in a disease that he set out to cure--the gross 
incompetence and corruption--that he perceived at the highest echelons 
in the Pentagon.
  Colonel Hackworth was determined to wipe it out and right a wrong.
  Over the years, we collaborated on a number of investigations. The 
one I remember best is the one involving Air Force General Joseph Ashy 
in 1994-95.
  Colonel Hackworth conducted his own investigation. He gathered the 
facts and the documents. I, in turn, referred Colonel Hackworth's 
allegations to the inspector general, IG, for review.
  This is what Colonel Hackworth reported in the press:

       General Ashy flew himself, his aide and family cat from 
     Italy to Colorado aboard a 200-seat Air Force plane; he flew 
     his wife round-trip on an Air Force VIP aircraft from 
     Colorado to Washington; and he made palatial renovations at 
     his headquarters.

  The IG concluded that General Ashy's ``wasteful escapades'' cost the 
taxpayers $424,602.00.
  Colonel Hackworth found out about General Ashy's ``escapades'' from 
one of his beloved soldiers who was denied a seat--and free ride home--
on Ashy's airplane.
  Colonel Hackworth's comments were as follows:

       The taxpayers got ripped-off for almost a half a million 
     bucks by a member of our military elite and virtually nothing 
     is being done about it. . . . The Air Force spinmeisters lied 
     through their teeth about what General Ashy did. . . . 
     Besides being a blatant waste of money, this incident is 
     about deception and the art of diffusing responsibility. . . 
     . Ashy was fined a mere $5,020.00 and continues to have four 
     stars and his finger on the nuclear button.

  General Ashy wrote out a check for the fine and sent it to Air Force 
Headquarters on June 26, 1995. However, instead of depositing his check 
at the bank, the check was stashed in a safe in Air Force Secretary 
Sheila Widnall's office--for what I suspect was permanent safekeeping. 
At my request, the IG began making new inquiries and the check finally 
went to the bank on September 15, 1995.
  This great American soldier told us--in ``plain old English''--what 
he expected from the top brass at the Pentagon. He expected them to 
lead by example. If they failed his leadership and integrity test at 
headquarters, he believed they would fail on the battlefield.
  His pronouncements were blunt, for sure. They were almost always 
harsh and sometimes coarse. But they always conveyed an important 
lesson tempered by battlefield experiences. So I listened and learned. 
His opinions on the Pentagon brass had credibility in my book. He had 
put them to the ultimate test on so many distant battlefields. That was 
good enough for me.
  The lessons taught by this great American soldier are lessons that 
will stand the test of time. Setting the example has been the most 
powerful element of leadership since the beginning of time. Colonel 
Hackworth kept going back to those enduring principles. As a Nation, we 
must do the same. We must rely on those ideas. They are too important 
to be forgotten. They must be followed.
  Colonel Hackworth was a constant and forceful reminder of just how 
important those principles really are.
  The memory of Colonel Hackworth and all that he stood for lives on in 
our hearts and minds.
  Colonel Hackworth has left us. His remains will be laid to rest in 
Arlington National Cemetery on May 31. But he will not be forgotten. He 
will never fade away.

                          ____________________