[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Page 13366]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        REMEMBERING SYL METZGER

 Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, last week I received notice from a 
North Dakota constituent about a funeral that was held on Friday. The 
funeral was for Syl Metzger from Langdon, ND. Reading about the life of 
this extraordinary man reminded me again about how much we owe to 
people we seldom thank.
  Syl Metzger was not a politician or a business executive or 
celebrity. But he was a hero. He was one of what Tom Brokaw called the 
``greatest generation.'' He was one of those young Americans who seven 
decades ago was called on by his country to put on a uniform, pick up a 
rifle, and wage the fight for freedom half way around the world.
  Syl Metzger landed on the beaches of Normandy during the D-day 
invasion. He fought in the campaign in northern Europe, including the 
Battle of the Bulge. The fights that he and his fellow soldiers waged 
have become legendary.
  Following the Second World War, all across our country those young 
soldiers returned home and lived down the street, up the block, or out 
on the farm, and seldom spoke of their experiences in World War II. 
They became the members of the community who you could count on to do 
things. They built homes, schools, and communities and became the glue 
that made America work. Because they knew the horrors of war and the 
pain of losing fellow soldiers in the battlefield, they perhaps more 
than any other Americans treasured the freedoms that they had risked 
their lives to save.
  Now with the passage of time those young soldiers have become older 
Americans, in many cases reaching their ninth decade of life. Every day 
across this country, friends and neighbors gather in the sanctuary of a 
local church to say goodbye to a relative or an old friend. In many 
cases, only then do they remember and celebrate the heroic commitment 
of service to our country by those American patriots.
  It was Syl Metzger's son who informed me of his father's death. I had 
met Syl Metzger only once last fall when he and a group of World War II 
veterans came to Washington, DC, on an Honor Flight to see the World 
War II Memorial. So our lives touched only briefly. But when his son 
sent me the e-mail about his funeral, it reminded me again that he and 
his fellow soldiers did things for our country that touched all of our 
lives. Yet we seldom understand the magnitude of their sacrifice and 
the benefit of their courage that was a gift to all Americans.
  God bless the memory of Syl Metzger and the rest of the ``greatest 
generation.'' America says thank you.

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