[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 19739-19740]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    TRIBUTE TO GENERAL WAYNE DOWNING

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I would like to mark the passing of an 
American hero. Retired Four-Star GEN Wayne Downing, a native of Peoria, 
IL, passed away on Wednesday.
  General Downing personified the ideal that was ingrained into him and 
all cadets at West Point: ``Duty, Honor, Country.''
  He spent most of his adult life wearing his country's uniform and 
continued to answer the call to serve even after retirement.
  When General Downing retired after 34 years of military service in 
1996, he was one of the country's leaders on terrorism.
  After three decades as an Army Ranger, he had spent more time 
developing and implementing anti-terrorist and insurgent tactics than 
just about any man alive.
  His devotion to service came early in his life.
  Growing up in Peoria, his mother would read to him news reports from 
the battlefields of Europe where his father, PFC Francis Downing, was 
part of the 9th Armored Division, leading the American charge into Nazi 
Germany.
  Private First Class Downing was killed in March 1945 in one of the 
final engagements of World War II.
  As he grew up fatherless, Wayne would spend hours listening to the 
tales of his neighbor, a wounded combat veteran of the 101st Airborne 
division. It was while listening to those stories that he decided what 
he was going to do with his life.
  He began his career in the Army as a junior officer in Vietnam, where 
he served two tours of duty and earned two Silver Stars, the Soldiers 
Medal, the Bronze Star with Valor and five oak leaf clusters, and the 
Purple Heart.
  In 1974, he was hand-picked by his commander to help reform the famed 
Army Rangers.
  During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, he commanded 1,200 U.S. 
Special Forces.
  By the time he retired in 1996, General Downing was head of the U.S. 
Special Operations Command, in charge of the special operations forces 
of all the services, including the Navy's SEALs and the Army's Green 
Berets.
  But retirement did not end General Downing's service to America. Two 
Presidents called him out of retirement to help them confront 
terrorism.
  President Clinton tapped him to lead the investigation into the 1996 
truck bomb attack that killed 19 U.S. servicemen and one Saudi and 
wounded 372 others at Khobar Towers, a U.S. military housing complex in 
Saudi Arabia.
  After September 11, President Bush called General Downing out of 
retirement again to serve as his top counter-terrorism advisor a post 
General Downing held for nine months.
  There was not a man alive more qualified for the job.
  Wayne Downing understood earlier than most the nature of the threat 
we face from terrorism, and he did his best to help craft a wise and 
effective response to that threat.
  It is one of the mysteries of this life that a man who has faced such 
formidable foes would die from a microscopic enemy: bacterial 
meningitis. Family members say he died within 24 hours of contracting 
the illness. He was 67 years old.
  I last saw General Downing on Memorial Day. He was the keynote 
speaker in Peoria at the dedication of a memorial to servicemembers who 
had died in World War I and World War II. I had the privilege of 
speaking at that same gathering.
  When organizers of the dedication approached him about speaking, they 
were apologetic that they could offer him only a small stipend. Before 
they could finish their apology, General Downing interrupted and said 
it would be his honor to speak.
  One of the names carved into the memorial belonged to his father.
  As he rose to speak that day, it was raining. Someone tried to offer 
General Downing an umbrella, but he politely waved it away. He said to 
the crowd:

       Many of you were infantry, and so was I. We didn't have 
     umbrellas in the infantry.


[[Page 19740]]


  He was a soldier's soldier to the end and a true patriot.
  He will be missed. On behalf of the United States Senate, I would 
like to extend my deepest condolences to General Downing's family, his 
colleagues and friends. Our nation joins you in your grief. I am 
honored to have known this great patriot, GEN Wayne Downing of Peoria, 
IL.

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