[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Pages 22017-22018]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    TRIBUTE TO SENATOR MEL MARTINEZ

  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I wish to add my comments to a few other 
comments on Mel Martinez whom we all loved so much. I do not think I 
have ever seen anyone since Jesse Helms who was loved by so many people 
as Mel Martinez. He had a way of smiling, and in talking about things 
in a way that others did not understand. My colleagues have already 
come to the floor and talked about his escape from Cuba and how he came 
over and how then he was able to get his father over. It is a story 
that America will always remember. It will always be in our history 
books.
  He was always such a great guy. He will be missed around here.
  One of the things that was not said much about him was his sense of 
humor. I have to say I enjoyed being around him because he was, in his 
own subtle way, a very humorous person. I can remember, and I have had 
the occasion, probably more than any other Member, going into the areas 
in Iraq and Afghanistan and Africa where there were hostilities. But I 
was making probably my 12th or 14th trip into Baghdad on a C-130. It 
happened to be Mel Martinez's first trip. So we were talking about: 
Once you get out, you are going to run over to the helicopter, and they 
are going to take you to the Green Zone, all of the things to 
anticipate. I said to him: One of the problems we are going to have is 
that when we leave, we have these old C-130E models. They should be re-
engined. We should have J models, but we do not. Because of the cuts in 
the military, we have not been able to upgrade those systems.
  So I said: When we climb out of here, it is going to be in a C-130E 
model. We are not going to be able to climb as high and as fast as we 
want, and there are surface-to-air missiles out there that we have to 
be concerned about. And, of course, they are all set up. We have very 
capable pilots and crews in these C-130s. So I said: We will be well 
taken care of if something happens. Sure enough, it happened.
  The first thing you do when you get out of your helicopter in Baghdad 
to get on a C-130 to come back to Kuwait or wherever you might be going 
is you take your helmet, your life jacket, your vest off, because they 
are so heavy and uncomfortable--you get in there and you take them off. 
Well, we all did that.
  I was sitting up with, as I do quite often, the pilots, when all of a 
sudden the explosion came, the light was there, and we deployed the 
heat-seeking devices that are on a C-130. Of course, that is already 
very loud. Someone who has never gone through that experience before 
would assume we were about to go down.
  I ran downstairs and I saw Mel Martinez sitting there without his 
helmet,

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without his protective vest by him; he had put them back on. I said: 
Mel, what are you doing putting your vest and your helmet back on?
  He said: Well, I assumed that we were going to be shot down. And if 
Kitty--that is his wife--if she found out that I did not have my vest 
and my helmet on, she would kill me.
  Well, that is Mel Martinez. He had all of those jewels. I think he is 
going to be missed by a lot of us for all of the reasons we have 
articulated on the floor.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, how much time is remaining in morning 
business?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. There is 12 minutes remaining.

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