Sfc Sean Cooley and Spc Christopher Horton Congressional Gold Star Family Fellowship Program Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LOUDERMILK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, my friend and colleague, the ranking member, for yielding this time.

This is one of those pieces of legislation that really touches your heart.

As a veteran, I have had the opportunity to serve with some of America's finest, and I have also experienced the loss and the families that have lost loved ones in defense of this Nation.

But my story with the Gold Star goes back to even when I was a child. You see, my dad was a veteran. He was a medic in World War II. He was involved in the D-Day invasion. He went all the way through from Normandy, through France, into Belgium, and then on into Germany.

I remember when I was young, I was going through this photo album that my mom had, and as I was flipping through seeing the pictures that my dad brought back from World War II, there was this interesting picture of a banner hanging inside of a church.

And I remember when I asked her about this, because my children recently, just a few years ago, were going through the album not long before my mom and my dad passed away. They saw that same picture and they asked the same question I asked: What is this? This banner had names, various names of people, and next to the names was a silver star or a gold star.

I remember when my children asked the question: ``What does this mean?'' My mom, who was a teenager at the time, said: ``This banner was in the entrance of our church, and the names on it were all the boys from our church that were serving in the European or the Pacific theater. And the silver star at the time indicated that they were deployed into the combat area.''

But then she kind of got teary-eyed, and she said: ``But when it was a gold star, it meant that they had been killed in action.''

I remember her telling about the D-Day invasion, because they knew that something was going to happen. They knew we were going to invade, but they didn't know exactly when. And the night of the invasion, when President Roosevelt took to the airwaves and led the Nation in a prayer for the invasion, her father told her to go throughout the town of Waha, South Carolina, and gather everyone to come to the church and pray.

She said they stayed and they prayed in the church all night long. But she said a couple of days later, when they went back to the church, she looked, and several of those names now had gold stars, including the pastor, the pastor's son. I remember her telling the impact that it had upon those families.

Many of these families are devastated, not only at the loss of their loved one who gave their life for our freedom, but at the life they will have to endure, the responsibilities that they will take on solely for that family.

I got to know a family when I was in the State legislature whose son was killed in Iraq during the war on terror. I was able to name an intersection after Justin Johnson. His story went on because his family were such patriots, even though his mom was a Gold Star Mother at that point.

His father wanted to complete the mission for which his son started and reenlisted back into the National Guard. Unfortunately, his unit was not going to be deployed, so he asked to be actually transferred to a unit that was going to deploy, which the Army did. He went and fulfilled the mission that his son wasn't able to complete.

I have seen and I have worked with these families and know the tragic situations they are in. And, as others have, there is actually a wounded warrior on our staff, Chase Sanger, an Army airborne veteran, who is one of the finest that our Nation has produced.

To be able to extend this on to the families of those heroes, I think is not only admirable, but it is something that we should have done a long time ago. I salute my colleague, General Kelly, for bringing this forward. I give it my utmost support, and I think this is well overdue.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LOUDERMILK. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for bringing this measure forward and giving us an opportunity to do something so important for these families.

I am sure many of you, as you watch the television, see the different organizations that have evolved over the past several years to provide assistance to those families. One particular organization provides assistance in paying off the mortgages for these families.

I bring that up just as an illustration to the aspects of what these Gold Star families go through at the loss of their loved one. Sometimes it is the primary income earner from the family because, quite often, the spouse is at home taking care of the children and, all of a sudden, they are the primary breadwinner, their loved one is gone. They are left with these bills. They are left with, a lot of times, situations beyond just the grief of what they are feeling at the loss of their family member, they have to deal with these unbearable situations.

Providing them with an opportunity for the spouse or their children to find employment in something that they feel is also meaningful, because many of them have such a patriotic heart, they want to continue to serve.

One of the things that I have often said to many of my veterans and friends who have served is that when we take that oath of office, there are a lot of things that we swear to, to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, up to and including giving our own lives, if necessary. But one thing that is not in that oath of office is an expiration date.

Many veterans and their families, even at the end of their regular service, still feel that need and that desire to serve. This will give an opportunity for those family members to continue to serve their country in a meaningful way.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source