[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12584-12585]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO MARK BRAUDIS

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, every week, I have been coming to the 
floor to talk about the wonderful people in my State. A lot of people 
have visited Alaska. If you haven't and you are watching on TV, we 
really, really want to welcome you to come. It will be the trip of a 
lifetime; I guarantee it.
  What we like to do when we talk about our Alaskan of the Week is talk 
about someone who has made a real impact, someone who doesn't get a lot 
of attention, someone who has made an impact on his community or 
country, and let people know we are thinking about them, let people 
know we are proud of them. Before recess, I want to do that for a 
couple of Alaskans today, and I would like to start by talking about a 
gentleman who has gotten a little press lately in Alaska, but I want 
the country to hear about it. It is really a remarkable story--Mr. Mark 
Braudis.
  Let me tell you a little bit about Mark. Mark came to my attention 
through a recent column by Charles Wohlforth in the Alaska Dispatch 
News.
  Mark is originally from Pennsylvania. When he was just 17 years old, 
he joined the Navy, like a lot of Alaskans. We have more vets per 
capita than any State in the country. He was deployed in 1972.
  Mark said:

       When I was in high school, everyone had long hair and were 
     anti-government. That's not the way I was. I was for God and 
     country. If my brothers were over there in Vietnam, I wanted 
     to stand with them.

  So he went. When a lot of people were avoiding service, he went.
  When Mark got out, he couldn't find a job, so he began to hitchhike 
across the country into Canada and other places, and he wound up in the 
magical place we call Alaska. Mark arrived in 1976. After leaving once 
and coming back, he got a job as a taxi driver--a good job. He met and 
fell in love with one of his passengers, a beautiful woman named Helen. 
They went on to have seven children--Stephen, David, Kelly, Jared, 
Michael, and Jenny. Helen was a great mother.
  Then, unfortunately, as sometimes happens in families in certain 
circumstances, tragedy struck their family. In 2007, Helen was walking 
down a busy road and was hit and unfortunately killed by a car passing 
by.
  Faced with unspeakable grief, Mark knew he couldn't fall apart. He 
had seven kids between the ages of 6 and 16, and he had to take care of 
them. One of them was in third grade at the time and couldn't stop 
crying over the loss of his mom. The school called often, and Mark--
still a taxi driver--left work to pick him up. The hours of tending to 
his kids began to rack up. He couldn't pay the rent. His kids and he 
had to eventually live in a homeless shelter.
  A social worker wanted to put the kids up for adoption, but Mark 
refused. They had lost their mother, they had lost their home, and they 
weren't going to lose their dad. The family needed him, and they were a 
team.
  Eventually--and this is so great; it happens all across Alaska, all 
across America--with the help of the community, in this case, their 
local Catholic church, Saint Anthony's Parish, Mark was able to afford 
rent for a three-bedroom apartment with one bathroom where they still 
live today and to buy his own taxi license.
  In the face of adversity, he raised his kids to be strong, proud, 
caring, responsible, and to do the right thing. They stuck together. 
They ran together, sometimes as many as 6 miles a day--the Navy veteran 
out with his children. They studied together. They were good kids. They 
didn't miss school or the bus. They never got in trouble. They were a 
team.
  This is what is remarkable about this family: Six out of the seven 
Braudis children, whom I have been speaking about, have joined the 
Marines Corps. They have taken after their dad, serving their country--
six out of seven. How many families in America can say that? The 
seventh couldn't because of a medical issue, and he is nearly finished 
with a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Alaska 
in Anchorage and tutors students in math at the university.
  The youngest one, Jenny, a senior in high school, has already been 
sworn in to the Marines. She wants to drive tanks. The middle child, 
Jared, is the only one who joined the infantry. When they all get 
together, he kids them, telling them he is the tough one, but I am sure 
they are all tough. Jared said:

       When we were growing up, my dad just made things right. He 
     still does.

  What did Mark learn from these challenges? He said:

       When you're married, you become one. And when my wife 
     passed away, she brought me to God with her. And then I 
     brought my children to God. I didn't understand it then, but 
     I do now. It's been one miracle after another.
       Also, what I learned? I'm a dad above everything else.


[[Page 12585]]


  Well, Mark, thank you. Thanks to you, your children, and your family 
for this amazing example and for doing such a great job of raising your 
kids. You are a model for all of us. Thank you for being our Alaskan of 
the Week.

                          ____________________