[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 6]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 7995]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO WALKER SHORES

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. PETE OLSON

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 4, 2013

  Mr. OLSON. Mr. Speaker, I am privileged to interact with some of the 
brightest students in the 22nd Congressional District who serve on my 
Congressional Youth Advisory Council. I have gained much by listening 
to the high school students who are the future of this great nation. 
They provide important insight into the concerns of our younger 
constituents and hopefully get a better sense of the importance of 
being an active participant in the political process. Many of the 
students have written short essays on a variety of topics and I am 
pleased to share these with my House colleagues.
  Walker Shores is a junior at Austin High School in Fort Bend County, 
Texas. His essay topic is: Select an important event that has occurred 
in the past 50 years and explain how that event has changed our 
country.

       On the 4th of November, 1979, several hundred Iranian 
     students inspired by anti-American statements and speeches 
     from their ``Supreme Leader'', Ruhollah Khomeini, invaded the 
     United States Embassy in Tehran. Due to the aftermath of the 
     recent revolution, and inflamed by the support and 
     endorsement of the regime the wayward students had come to 
     love, what was supposed to last only a few hours became a 444 
     day nightmare for the fifty two American diplomats, aides, 
     attaches, and Marine Embassy Guards held within Tehran.
       The sitting president, Jimmy Carter, immediately attempted 
     diplomatic means to persuade the Iranians to see reason. 
     However, after almost a year with no progress in the 
     negotiations, President Carter was convinced by his cabinet 
     to organize a military strike in Iran to free the hostages, 
     using the newly created Delta Force. Operation Eagle Claw was 
     scheduled to take place on April 24, 1980.
       Due to a lack of communication between all of the services 
     involved, and an absence of a clear chain of command, the 
     operation was a failure. Two helicopters were disabled by a 
     sandstorm and another due to electronic failures, then a 
     fourth helicopter collided with a C-130 tanker, destroying 
     both of the vehicles and killing eight service members. The 
     fiasco among the fledgeling special forces community was the 
     catalyst for the creation of SOCOM, or Special Operations 
     Command. This organization would help Delta Force, the Navy 
     SEALS, and the Green Berets become the immeasurably powerful 
     foreign policy tool that they are today.
       At Jimmy Carter's last State of the Union speech, our 
     thirty ninth president did something rather out of character, 
     changing the way America would treat the Persian Gulf region 
     forever. For the first three years of Carter's 
     administration, he advocated peace and diplomacy as the 
     primary, if not only, response to challenges and crises 
     around the world. He tried to cut down on the United State's 
     consumption of oil, and symbolically shut off the lights on 
     the White House Christmas Tree to save power. However, due to 
     the overthrow of the once ardently pro-U.S. Iranian regime 
     under his administration, this speech had a more somber tone. 
     At the time, there were still hostages in Tehran, and there 
     were severe fluctuations in the price of oil in the United 
     States due to the dubiousness of the middle eastern oil 
     supply. In the most groundbreaking speech of his career, 
     Carter pledged to use American resources, and military unit 
     if need be, to explicitly protect overseas sources of oil.
       This was the first time that The United States had made a 
     foreign policy statement to commit their military to defend 
     natural resources. This decree dramatically shaped how the 
     United States treated the region, and how future presidents 
     would be obliged to act. Both the new foreign policy doctrine 
     and the creation of SOCOM were two of the direct results of 
     the hostage taking at the American embassy in Tehran on 
     November 4th, 1979.

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