[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Page 15647]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   TRIBUTE TO COLONEL MARTIN L. SIMS

 Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I wish to pay special tribute to 
COL Martin L. Sims on the occasion of his retirement from a long and 
distinguished career in the U.S. Army.
  Colonel Sims began his military career through the Army Reserve 
Officer Training Corps at Vanderbilt University where he was a 
Distinguished Military Graduate in 1987, was branched as an armor 
officer, and was granted an educational delay to attend law school at 
the University of Tennessee where he served as the managing editor of 
the Tennessee Law Review and graduated with honors in 1990.
  After being assessed into the Army Judge Advocate General's Corps, he 
entered into active duty as a first lieutenant, less than 2 months 
after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. For the next 25 years, Colonel Sims 
served faithfully as a judge advocate during which time he was 
stationed overseas four times and deployed on numerous occasions to 
Afghanistan, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, the former Yugoslav 
Republic of Macedonia, Hungary, Kosovo, Kuwait, and Iraq in support of 
various contingency operations.
  A dedicated and talented soldier-lawyer, Colonel Sims held numerous 
positions of significant responsibility, culminating in his selection 
as the special assistant for strategy, plans, and capabilities within 
the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative 
Affairs. Some of the many other key positions Colonel Sims held prior 
to his final assignment include service as the staff judge advocate for 
the 25th Infantry Division in Iraq; the staff judge advocate for 
Combined Joint Interagency Task Force 435 in Afghanistan; legal advisor 
to the inspector general of the Army, and deputy chief of the 
international and operational law branch at the office of the Judge 
Advocate General of the Army. A recognized master military justice 
practitioner, COL Sims also served the Army and the Department of 
Defense as a distinguished jurist, sitting as a senior judge on the 
United States Army Court of Criminal Appeals and as an associate judge 
on the United States Court of Military Commission Review.
  I ask that you join me, our colleagues, and Colonel Sims' many 
friends in saluting this distinguished officer's many contributions and 
sacrifices in the defense of our great Nation. It is fitting that the 
Senate today publicly recognizes his service and wishes him; his wife, 
Stacy; and their daughters, Heather and Rachel, health, happiness, and 
success in the years to come.

                          ____________________