[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16703]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1900
  PATRIOT AND MEDAL OF HONOR RECIPIENT FIRST SERGEANT DAVID McNERNEY, 
                           UNITED STATES ARMY

  (Mr. POE of Texas asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, as we near Veterans Day, I want to pay 
a special tribute to my friend First Sergeant David McNerney. Here is a 
photograph of him, here to my left. After high school in Houston, David 
volunteered and enlisted in the United States Navy. He spent two tours 
of duty in Korea. And after leaving the Navy in 1953, he joined the 
United States Army. In 1962, McNerney was one of the first 500 soldiers 
sent to Vietnam. During his third tour of duty in Vietnam, he was 
stationed near the Cambodian border. And in March of '67, he and his 
company were sent to recover a missing reconnaissance team.
  Coming under heavy Vietnamese attack, McNerney was wounded by a 
grenade, and his commander was killed. Nonetheless, McNerney continued 
the fight, calling in close artillery fire. He destroyed an enemy 
machine gun, he pulled wounded to safety, he secured a landing zone for 
medical helicopters, and he refused to be evacuated himself. His 
actions stopped the enemy advance and saved his own men's lives. His 
valor earned First Sergeant McNerney the Congressional Medal of Honor, 
and it was presented to him by President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Then 
McNerney volunteered yet again for a fourth tour of duty in Vietnam.
  After serving in the Army and the Navy, McNerney returned to Crosby, 
Texas. And last year, my friend First Sergeant McNerney died in Texas, 
still a patriot. Mr. Speaker, where does America get such men as these, 
these warriors, this rare breed, these Americans?
  And that's just the way it is.

                          ____________________