[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 9762-9763]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      70TH COMMEMORATION OF D-DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, this past weekend, I had the privilege 
of joining the President of the United States in the official 
delegation to the 70th commemoration of D-Day.
  It was not a normal experience of an international codel, the 
opportunity to interact with our colleagues and allies in Europe, but 
it was a testament and a testimony to the continuing strength, 
determination, and value of the United States of America. It was a 
moving experience. It was an experience based in reality.
  We listened to the recounting of the deliberations of General 
Montgomery, General Eisenhower, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston 
Churchill, and many others. We listened to the stories of young men, 
many of whom signed up at the age of 15 or 16, 17, wanting to serve 
their country, not knowing where they would go, now in their late 80s 
and early 90s, and some would say the sweetest men that you had ever 
seen, showing pictures, telling stories, and shedding a tear about the 
comrades that were left on Omaha Beach or Sword Beach, soldiers that 
didn't speak the same language but understood the words of liberation 
and freedom.
  I would only say that I hope this challenges this body called the 
House of Representatives, that they didn't wear the armor of 
Republicans or Green Party or Tea Party or Independent Party or 
Democratic Party; they wore the armor of an American.
  What wonderful words of General Eisenhower, who said that he needed 
the unity, the strength of all, or the sadness of those who ploughed 
their way onto the beach, seasick and nauseous as they were, losing 
tons of equipment, and, unfortunately, at times coming and falling over 
bodies of bleeding soldiers, losing some 10,000 in the first day.
  Where is the America of that time, prepared to take up comprehensive 
immigration reform or prepared to take up serious gun regulations to 
stop this unending violence in America, even the shooting of two law 
enforcement officers? What has America come to?

                              {time}  1015

  Where is its greatness? Where is the reality that we are the 
generations that have inherited those young men's lives--and young 
women's, the Rosie Riveters--who left their homes, sacrificing? Where 
is the placement of the Voting Rights Act reauthorization, which is a 
bipartisan bill? Why haven't we passed that to show that liberty is 
real in the United States of America?
  I had moments where tears fell--of joy--and the privilege of talking 
to and meeting these men, watching them receive the honor from the 
French people, and as we walked through the streets even today, the 
people of France were saying thank you with a degree of emotion that 
knew that they would not be free, they would not be liberated, they 
would not be France if it had not been for those boys who left the soil 
of this United States; or those who came from Guadeloupe and 
Martinique, men of color who came and were trained from Fort Dix and 
then fought on the shores; or my uncle, who fought in Tunis and 
Ethiopia; and others who left my widowed grandmother, her three sons, 
leaving one behind--all of us have been touched.
  So it is important that, even as we look to the status of Sergeant 
Bergdahl, that we look at it in a spirit of fairness, not 
grandstanding, not partisan politics, but finding out the facts and 
realizing that America is greater than divisive politics when you look 
to the Greatest Generation of which we have now been given the gift of 
their life, their sacrifice.
  No one will be the same after they have walked amongst the white 
crosses that represent the blood shed by America, not to conquer 
Europe, but to free Europe. That is our mantra, and that is what we 
should do for the American

[[Page 9763]]

people, not to conquer them, but to free them from violence, from 
inconsistent policies, and certainly from the inability to vote.
  I pay tribute to the 70th commemoration of the brilliance of America 
and the spirit of her youth, and I tell everyone that that brilliance 
and that spirit is not lost upon us today.
  I am happy because I know that embedded in all of those who walk the 
streets of this Nation and call themselves an American have that same 
spirit, and we can make a difference in this country for all of those 
who need us.

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