Senate Floor Speech
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
April 8, 2003 -- Page: S4920

MRS. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, today I am going to continue what the Senate has been doing since our troops started the invasion of Iraq, and that is to take the first period before we go on to the business of the day to salute the troops who are in the field protecting our freedom.

Today, I want to salute the members of the 507th Maintenance Company. This is the company out of Fort Bliss in El Paso, TX, who really were the first to be captured, the first prisoners of war shown on Iraqi television. Some of them have now been recovered, but there are still five missing.

The rescue of PFC Jessica Lynch was a moment of triumph but also sadness, as the celebration was tempered by the recovery of the remains of fallen soldiers who were later identified as her comrades in arms. General Renuart at CENTCOM described the rescue this way: A special ops soldier called to Private Lynch saying:

Jessica Lynch, we're United States soldiers and we're here to protect you and take you home. .....

As he walked over to her bed, took his helmet off, she looked up to him and said:

I'm an American soldier, too.

General Renuart also described the recovery of the remains of the soldiers who had been killed because they were told by the same sources that there were remains of other soldiers on the ground outside the hospital where Jessica lay. He said:

At the same time, the team was led to a burial site, where, in fact, they did find a number of bodies that they believed could be Americans missing in action. They did not have shovels in order to dig those graves up, so they dug them up with their hands. And they wanted to do that very rapidly so they could race the sun and be off the site before the sun came up; a great testament to the will and desire of coalition forces to bring their own home.

That one line says all you will ever need to know about the character of the young men and women in the military today, who refuse to leave their fallen comrades behind: They dug them up with their hands, and raced the sun.

On Friday evening, the families of those whose remains were recovered were officially notified that their loved ones had been killed in action. We mourn their loss.

They were PFC Lori Ann Piestewa, the first American woman soldier killed in the Iraq war. This is a picture showing the two friends, PFC Jessica Lynch and PFC Lori Piestewa. They were at Fort Bliss the day of their deployment. They were roommates and friends.

Private First Class Piestewa was a Hopi Indian, one of the few American Indian women serving in the military. She was PFC Jessica Lynch's good friend and roommate.

``Our family is proud of her; she is our hero,'' her brother Wayland said Saturday. ``We are going to hold that in our hearts. She will not be forgotten. It gives us comfort to know that she is at peace right now.''

Behind me are the pictures of some who have died in action, and I am going to speak about each of them.

In Texas, there is a town called Comfort that lived up to its name by embracing and comforting the parents of SP James Kiehl. In Comfort, TX, the parents of SP James M. Kiehl are being comforted by their friends and neighbors. The 6-foot 8-inch soldier was a high school basketball player and a member of the band. The people of Comfort, moved by James' death, created an impromptu memorial where basketballs, flower arrangements, personal notes, and even baseball bats have been left as tributes to James. His father summed up the family's feelings this way:

We just want everyone to know we support the President and the troops, and we believe in what James went over there for.

James Kiehl's wife, Jill, is staying with her parents in Des Moines, IA, and is expecting their first child next month.

In Mobile, AL, Rev. Howard Johnson, Sr., buried his son, Army PFC Howard Johnson, Jr., from the same pulpit of the Truevine Baptist Church where he had stood so many times offering words of comfort to his congregation. Reverend Johnson said of his son:

Howard, you out ran me, but I'll see you in the morning.

SGT Donald Walters of Kansas City, MO, fought in Operation Desert Storm and had followed in his father's footsteps by joining the military. His father, Norman Walters, is an Air Force veteran and said this about his son:

He was a patriotic guy. He felt it was his duty to serve his country.

Sergeant Walters leaves behind a wife and three daughters.

MSG Robert Dowdy and PVT Brandon Sloan were both from Cleveland, OH. Master Sergeant Dowdy's brother-in-law had this to say about the career soldier:

He was ready to accept the challenge. That's the type of person he was. He knew going in what he was in store for and who he was and what he was about.

Private Sloan's father, the Rev. Tandy Sloan, proudly said his son ``was very committed to the cause of country.''

PVT Ruben Estrella-Soto was from El Paso, TX. This is his graduation picture. His father said his son had a lot of desire to do something with his life, and wanted to go into the military so he could get education.

CWO Johnny Villareal Mata was from Amarillo, TX. He played football on the Pecos High School Eagles football team and graduated in 1986. Soon thereafter he joined the Army. The family remembered him this way:

Our hearts are saddened, and we share the pain with the other families. He will be deeply missed and will never be forgotten.

SP Jamaal Addison of Roswell, GA, is remembered by his step-grandmother as ``a mild-mannered, quiet child'' who attended Bible study every Wednesday night before joining the Army.

The 507th Maintenance Company still has five soldiers who are prisoners of war. They are SP Shoshana Johnson, SP Edgar Hernandez, SP Joseph Hudson, PFC Patrick Miller, and SGT James Riley. I have talked with Claude Johnson, Shoshana's father, several times. He and his wife Eunice are caring for Shoshana's 2-year-old daughter.

These five have not been seen publicly since several hours after they were taken prisoner March 23, and the International Committee of the Red Cross has not yet been able to visit them in captivity. We join all Americans in urging the Iraqi Government to treat those prisoners in accordance with the Geneva Convention, just as we have treated the thousands of Iraqi prisoners we hold.

We pray those prisoners of war from the 507th Maintenance Company will be returned safely to their families. We pay tribute to them today for the sacrifices they have made.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS MADE LATER IN THE DAY:

MRS. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Minnesota for a wonderful statement. Certainly, every single life that is lost over there is appreciated and will be appreciated forever in the hearts of Americans because those young men and women are protecting the freedom we enjoy.

David Bloom, a constituent of the Senator from Minnesota, was also protecting our way of life. He was protecting the freedom of the press. He was serving so well to do that. I knew David personally, as most Members did, because he was such a special person and he did his job, worked hard, and was here a lot. We very much miss him and we know so many of his colleagues miss him, as well.

Mr. President, I wish to talk about T.R. Fehrenbach, a constituent of mine, who wrote what many think is the definitive book on the Korean war called ``This Kind of War.'' It is appropriate today. We have been amazed at the technological capability of our military in the war in Iraq. They have launched missiles, dropped bombs, and delivered other ordnance on the battlefield with pinpoint accuracy. I came across a picture today reminiscent of our soldiers from an earlier era that reminds me of some basic truths that apply no matter how much technological capability we might acquire.

I have a picture of American troops from the Army's 101st Airborne Division marching into Bastogne during World War II. This was the counterattack against the Germans. We see the 101st Airborne Division. I have another picture taken last week of the 101st Airborne Division, nearly 60 years later--a column from the First Brigade march into Najaf, Iraq, on Wednesday, April 2, 2003, doing basically the same thing.

These photographs demonstrate an old axiom about military operations that was written by Ted Fehrenbach in ``This Kind of War,'' a book about the Korean war:

Americans in 1950 rediscovered something that since Hiroshima they had forgotten: You may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life--but if you desire to defend it, protect it, and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men into the mud.

I know Ted Fehrenbach and I know he would have said today, by putting your brave young soldiers and marines in the mud, because what he is saying essentially is the same today as it was in 1950. And that is, if you want to protect a land and keep it for civilization, you must have our young men and women willing to go in on the ground. The truth is still the same today.