Unanimous Consent Request--S. Res. 685

Floor Speech

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Mr. JONES. Mr. President, I rise in support of my distinguished colleague Senator Duckworth and her resolution to honor our veterans, military servicemembers, and their families.

Senator Duckworth knows more than anyone in this Chamber about what it means to serve and to sacrifice, and I am honored to serve alongside someone who has given so much to our country--and I might add, she got her training in Alabama, down in Fort Rucker, where we have the training for all Army helicopter pilots. So thank you for that, and I hope you enjoyed your time, and we are going to get you back. Senator Duckworth is but just one representative here with her many brothers and sisters in uniform who have worn the uniform throughout.

Many in this body have served, and we heard a lot today about Senator McCain. I think few stand out as a military veteran more than our late colleague John McCain, the Vietnam veteran war hero, someone whom I served with but never, unfortunately, had the chance to meet. He was still a Member of the Senate by the time I got back here in January of 2018. His illness prevented him from coming to the floor. It will always be one of my great regrets that I could not have had at least 1 day on the floor of the U.S. Senate with John McCain.

He was a Vietnam veteran and a war hero, but he dared to speak out against a President. And this President, to this day, almost 2 years after John McCain's death, John McCain is the target of the President's wrath. Two years later, and he still has comments about a war hero.

I will tell you, to stand on the same floor at a moment like this, the same Senate floor where a hero like Senator McCain of Arizona spoke so passionately on behalf of our military and on which Senator Duckworth speaks so passionately about our military and our veterans, it is truly an honor.

Today, the loss of John McCain's voice in this Chamber is magnified by the silence of too many who will not say what needs to be said. Our military families and veterans deserve our full support. They don't deserve insults. They deserve our support every day, not just when it is politically convenient. It is the duty of this body and every Member of this body to defend those who have sacrificed so much to defend and protect our Nation. It is the obligation of all patriots in this country to do the same. In fact, true patriots would never think to do otherwise. It would never cross our minds as true patriots--it would never cross their mind to launch an insult to our military and our veterans, much less those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. It is what I do today and every day, as a Senator from Alabama, to honor our military--to honor them because I come from a State of heroes: Alabama.

I worked for one of those heroes. He was a military hero who later became a distinguished Member of this body from 1979 to 1997. Howell Heflin distinguished himself as a Marine officer in the brutal fighting of the Pacific theater of World War II, where he was wounded twice, awarded the Purple Heart and the Silver Star for Valor, and retired at the rank of major. I am so honored to be in his seat today where I worked for him as a young staffer so many years ago.

He, too, would rise in this Chamber in support and defense of our military. I know. I was here. I watched him. I saw him over the years. I was with him in every campaign. He was a tireless proponent of a strong military and understood Alabama's tremendous contributions to our Nation's defense, something I try to carry on in his stead.

As Alabama's Senator, Howell Heflin may have been called many things in the heat of politics, but none would have ever called him a sucker or a loser. None would have ever questioned his patriotism. Even though Alabama has a strong private sector supporting our Nation's military, no one would have ever accused him of simply promoting the business of defense contractors with his strong and unwavering support of defense spending to make America safe and secure.

You know, they are the less than 1 percent of Americans who have volunteered to risk their lives, to be away from their families, their loved ones, for weeks and months at a time, to uproot their families every few years and move, to put themselves in dangerous training, in physical and mental strain, and put themselves in harm's way when they are deployed in combat. Yet they ask for so little in return. That, folks, is the definition of selflessness.

While at one time I worked directly for a military hero in this body, today, as a U.S. Senator, I work for thousands of them--tens of thousands across America but, importantly, in the State of Alabama. I say Alabama is a State of heroes because it is true. Our sons and our daughters enlist and serve our Nation in numbers that far exceed our State's population, and I am so proud of that.

In Alabama alone, there are 27,000 men and women who serve either on Active Duty or in the Guard or Reserve. Alabama is home to 377,000 veterans. That is a lot of folks in a State of my size. Not quite 10 percent of the population are veterans.

The point here is that families in Alabama know what it means to see a loved one raise their hand and stand ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country. I have stood witness and nominated our best and our brightest to military academies in the 2 years that I have been here. We have been able to get over 40 of Alabama's best and brightest high school students into our military academies--40. And I watched with pride in how they became members of the military and how their families were so proud of them, not ever dreaming that one day, if they lost their life, the Commander in Chief of the United States might refer to them as a loser. I can assure every American that among the folks I know of, there are no suckers, and there are no losers. What every volunteer from Alabama, enlisted or officer, has in common is a deep and abiding love for our country.

As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I have had the honor to meet some of these folks overseas. I have traveled with my friend and colleague Senator Reed. I have met with folks from Alabama. I have felt their pride in the job that they were doing in Afghanistan and Iraq. They feel it deep down because that is the core of a patriot; that is the core of American values.

We owe each of them not just our gratitude but our commitment to serve them as they are serving or have served us. We have a duty to uphold our promises to care for them and their families, to provide good healthcare, to help them get an education and transition to good jobs after service. We have a duty to honor them with action and with humble appreciation. We should have the decency and sense of patriotism not to denigrate their service, especially if you have avoided making such a sacrifice yourself.

Over the past 2 years, I was fortunate to know a little bit better what it really means to serve and to sacrifice while I was working on the elimination of the military widow's tax. I got to know people like Cathy Milford from Mobile, AL, and so many others whose late spouses had served honorably. I was shocked to learn that for decades they had been denied full survivor benefits that their spouses had earned because the Federal Government wanted to save a few extra bucks. That our country could allow such an injustice to occur for nearly four decades is unconscionable, and we set out to change it.

Cathy used to talk about how she came up here every year, and she would say that every time she would argue for the elimination of the tax, it was like digging up her husband from the grave.

Sadie McCormack's husband passed away in a training accident in South Korea some 3 years ago. She has two kids at Auburn University, including a daughter who is the recent Miss Peanut for the Dothan area, where Fort Rucker is located. Sadie is a Gold Star wife who became a strong advocate of the military widow's tax issue. She had to go back to work teaching school to pay the bills because of that widow's tax.

Lois Thompson of Dothan is the widow of Army CW4 Richard Thompson, who retired after 35 years and 1 day of service. He retired in 1991 and died on March 18, 2013, having suffered from ALS for more than 6 years. He served two tours of duty where he waded into streams contaminated with Agent Orange. Senator Tester spoke about the denial of benefits to those who have suffered because of their contamination with Agent Orange.

Mrs. Thompson is 85 years old, and she was his caretaker during his extended illness. She said: My husband served two tours in Vietnam, wading in streams of Agent Orange. The war was so unpopular he couldn't wear his uniform home and was spit on upon arrival back to the States. Our soldiers were often not treated right, even these days.

I agree with Mrs. Thompson, and that is coming down from the Commander in Chief. So, let me make this clear. The sacrifice made by these women and men and their families is incalculable, and for far too many years we have failed to do our duty and keep our promise to those heroes. So I am so glad that with a bipartisan effort in this body and in the House--bipartisan, bicameral--we were able to correct that in last year's defense budget.

Unfortunately, I cannot say that I am surprised by reports that the President called Americans who died in the war losers and suckers. It seems to be just the latest in a series of comments he has made that demonstrate a lack of respect for those who serve. That respect goes far beyond simply putting money into our defense and our military. It goes to your patriotism. It goes to your heart. It is easy to put money into something. It is easy to do those kinds of things, especially when you have an Armed Services like we have here in the Senate that works in such a bipartisan fashion. It is a whole different thing to really talk in the privacy of only a few people about what you really believe.

I can't say I am surprised that combat-wounded veterans make him so uncomfortable that he would ban them from military events and parades. They are reminders of his own failure to serve when called upon. I am not surprised, but I am deeply disappointed--deeply disappointed. Our troops deserve a Commander in Chief who understands or, at the very least, appreciates their service.

As of yesterday, 52,143 Americans have been wounded in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, and 6,784 Americans have given their lives for those two missions. Many more have been deployed, often repeatedly, bringing home experiences and memories that are going to impact them for the rest of their lives. Their dedicated families have served alongside them through every step of the way. Few among us--few among us--can truly understand this kind of sacrifice for a cause greater than ourselves. But what we should all be able to understand is that they deserve our respect, our gratitude, and our unwavering efforts to uphold our promises to them and their families.

So, as I conclude, I stand here today and think about those sacrifices, the pain that John McCain lived with, the pain that Tammy Duckworth lived with, the honor with which he and she and Howell Heflin served and all of those who have served and sacrificed over the years-- all those families and all those who serve today--and it is stunning to me that the only sacrifice that we in this Chamber may suffer for our vote today is to suffer the wrath of a President because we stood in support of them and not him. After all they have done--say what needs to be said--we have to support them and not fear a baseless tweet from the President. A baseless tweet is simply not too high a price to pay for doing what is right by our military and our military families.

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