[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6488-6489]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       HONORING OUR ARMED FORCES


                        Major Mark E. Rosenberg

  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I rise today to honor the life of Major 
Mark E. Rosenberg--a father, a husband, and a soldier. Major Rosenberg 
was on his second tour in Iraq when a bomb exploded near the Humvee 
that was carrying him through the streets of Baghdad. The explosion 
tore through his vehicle, killing him. He was 32 years old.
  Major Rosenberg was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 29th Field 
Artillery Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, out 
of Fort Carson. The 3rd Brigade Combat team has lost 32 soldiers in 
Iraq, nine since deploying in November. Major Rosenberg was the 236th 
Fort Carson soldier killed in Iraq.
  Words cannot begin to measure the magnitude of Major Rosenberg's 
sacrifice, or the void left by his loss. Those who knew Mark remember 
him as a dedicated and dutiful soldier full of jokes and smiles. ``He 
was the life of

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the party,'' his sister recalls. ``Everybody wants to be around him.'' 
By all accounts, he was an extraordinary husband to his wife, Julie, 
and father to his two young sons, Joshua and Maxwell. Major Rosenberg 
was planning to come home on leave in June to celebrate Maxwell's 
second birthday.
  Mark entered the Army in the footsteps of his father, Burton 
Rosenberg. He graduated from the New Mexico Military Institute in 1996 
and received his commission shortly thereafter. He spent a year in 
Korea in 2001-2002 and a year in Iraq in 2004-2005. For his honorable 
service, he earned the Army Commendation Medal, the National Defense 
Service Medal, the Global War on Terror Service Medal, and the 
Humanitarian Service Ribbon.
  Mark's second deployment, which began last November, was scheduled 
for 15 months. His unit was tasked with training the Iraqi military, a 
job in which Major Rosenberg was committed to making a difference. He 
carried the spirit of a peacemaker and understood the humanitarian 
mission that a soldier could fulfill.
  Major Rosenberg was the type of `great man' who the activist and 
humanitarian Jane Addams described in a 1903 address to the Union 
League Club in Chicago. In the remarks she offered in honor of George 
Washington's birthday, Addams argued that ``when we come to the study 
of great men it is easy to think only of their great deeds, and not to 
think enough of their spirit. What is a great man who has made his mark 
upon history? Every time, if we think far enough, he is a man who has 
looked through the confusion of the moment and has seen the moral issue 
involved; he is a man who has refused to have his sense of justice 
distorted; he has listened to his conscience until conscience becomes a 
trumpet call to like-minded men, so that they gather about him and 
together, with mutual purpose and mutual aid, they make a new period in 
history.''
  Major Rosenberg, as Jane Addams describes, was able to see through 
the ``confusion of the moment'' and understand the moral dimensions of 
his work. He was able to inspire and lead his soldiers, and the Iraqis 
whom he was training, with his vision and his heart. He worked in one 
of the most dangerous places in the world, yet was able to lift those 
around him with his spirit and his optimism. Hope is at a premium in 
Iraq, and he will be sorely missed.
  It is at home, of course, that Major Rosenberg's absence is most 
strongly felt. To Julie, Joshua, and Maxwell, to his mother Sheila, to 
his sister Lori, and to all his family and friends, our thoughts are 
with you. I know of no words that can assuage the grief and pain you 
feel. I pray that you will find some consolation in knowing that Mark 
will never be forgotten and that his country will always honor his 
sacrifice. He was among the noblest of our citizens--a great man 
committed to justice, humanity, and duty. May his legacy lift us all.

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