[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16488]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      HONOR OUR FALLEN HEROES ACT

  (Mr. GUINTA asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GUINTA. Mr. Speaker, I rise to announce the introduction of the 
Honor Our Fallen Heroes Act, which came about thanks to the hard work 
of one of my constituents, Pam Rogers of Exeter, New Hampshire.
  Pam contacted me through my We the People initiative, which is a 
platform for concerned citizens to offer legislative ideas. Pam sought 
to bury, with the full recognition he deserves, an ancestor who fought 
in the Civil War.
  Pam discovered that Private Samuel Zortman died at the age of 21 in a 
Confederate prison camp. Conditions were brutal. He died of starvation. 
His captors buried him in a mass grave and he has since been moved to a 
national cemetery in South Carolina. An empty tomb near his hometown in 
Pennsylvania memorializes Private Zortman; but despite ample evidence 
of his service and death as a POW, the Veterans Health Administration 
cannot award him a headstone at a U.S. military cemetery.
  My bill clears up this technicality so that Pam and her family can 
finally lay to rest one of their own with full honors. The bill she 
helped produce would bring comfort to more like her. Our commitment to 
those who have bravely served our Nation should never end.

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