[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Page 11522]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         REMEMBERING BEAU BIDEN

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I wish to pay tribute to Joseph Robinette 
``Beau'' Biden III. Beau was a husband, father, son, brother, veteran, 
and friend, who lived a life of service, devoted to his family and his 
country. For Beau Biden, family was the center of his life: his father, 
our Vice President, and Dr. Jill Biden, his brother Hunter, his sister 
Ashley, and especially his wife Hallie and their children, Natalie and 
Hunter. Beau Biden's family and my family have been connected as 
friends, neighbors, and political allies for two generations. Like Vice 
President Biden, Beau was committed to duty, had great political 
skills, and lived his daily life with joy.
  Inscribed on the front of the Finance Building in Harrisburg, PA, is 
the following quotation: ``All public service is a trust, given in 
faith and accepted in honor.'' As a soldier and a public official in 
Delaware, Beau Biden's work was a testament to that inscription. He 
accepted the trust he was given by serving with honor and distinction. 
Beau Biden served in the Delaware Army National Guard as a major in the 
Judge Advocate General, JAG Corps, which included a tour in Iraq. 
Growing up with a father who was a United States Senator, Beau Biden 
could have taken an easy road to elected office, but that was not his 
way. He wanted to earn the trust of the people. He turned down an 
appointment as attorney general of Delaware, preferring to run for the 
position on his own. He won and served two terms as a faithful public 
servant. He was on track to become the next Governor of Delaware when 
his life was tragically cut short.
  As attorney general, Beau Biden fought every day to protect children. 
Albert Camus once said: ``Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from 
being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the 
number of tortured children. And if you don't help us, who else in the 
world can help us do this?'' Beau Biden answered that call. He said 
keeping children safe is why he wanted to be the attorney general of 
Delaware, and during his years in that position, he prosecuted child 
predators and worked to protect children from sexual abuse. In a column 
in the Wilmington News Journal, he wrote, ``As adults, we have a legal 
and moral obligation to stand up and speak out for children who are 
being abused--they cannot speak for themselves.'' It is fitting that 
his family established the Beau Biden Foundation for the Protection of 
Children to continue his fight.
  At times like this, people often think about what could have been. A 
decade after Robert F. Kennedy died, Allard Lowenstein wrote an article 
entitled ``Anniversary of an Assassination.'' In it he wrote, ``And 
anybody who finds himself wishing on this occasion that Robert Kennedy 
were around knows what Robert Kennedy would be saying if he were here--
knows that we have dallied long enough, and that it is past time to try 
again to do better, to make a difference; past time to dream again of 
things as they ought to be, and ask again why they are not.'' Beau 
Biden would not only want us to do the same thing, he would expect us 
to. He would be telling us to keep up the fight to protect children. He 
would be reminding us about the honor of public service, and he would 
be encouraging us to go out and serve our communities and our country.

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