Tribute to Senator John Warner
Floor Speech
TRIBUTE TO SENATOR JOHN WARNER -- (Senate - September 27, 2008)
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I rise also today to pay my respects to another retiring Member of the Senate, the squire from Virginia, a longtime colleague of the occupant of the chair, and a truly remarkable man.
It is not a stretch to say that if most Americans were asked to conjure up in their minds the image of a U.S. Senator, the man they would see is the senior Senator from Virginia. To most people, John Warner seems as though he were born to be a Member of this body, and in a remarkable 30-year career, he has proven they were right. He has matched the image with the skill and, though it certainly never was, he made it look easy.
Virginians are very proud of their history. They are proud of their traditions. And John Warner has lived up to the best of them. Like our Nation's first President and Virginia's most famous son, he has always been a patriot first.
The son of a World War I field surgeon, John first heard the call to serve while still in high school, dropping his studies at age 17 and enlisting in the Navy in the closing months of World War II. The call to serve later led him to interrupt law school in order to join the Marine Corps in the Korean war. After that, it led him to fulfill his mother's dream by becoming Secretary of the Navy; to take charge of America's bicentennial in 1976; and, for the last three decades, to serve America and the people of the Old Dominion with distinction in the Senate. These are the deeds that define John Warner. They are the only things that can explain a career that has been as significant to the strength of our Nation--and as beneficial to the people of his State--as his.
John always balanced the interests of his State and the Nation masterfully. Virginians have honored him for it, sending him back to the Senate four times after that first election in 1978, and he has repaid them time after time.
Over the years, John has earned a reputation as one of the most knowledgeable, hardest working, respected Senators on Capitol Hill. He has distinguished himself among his colleagues on both sides of the aisle as a man of intelligence, deep humanity, and courage. The people of Virginia can be proud of his many years of service in the Senate. John's entire Senate career speaks of his skills as a legislator and his love of Virginia and country.
But any list of his legislative accomplishments would have to begin with the work he has done on behalf of the men and women in our military. He has vastly improved the quality of life for military men and women by fighting for substantial increases in pay, including increases in separation, hardship duty, and imminent danger pay.
He has played a central role in improving benefits for widows and survivors of fallen soldiers.
And many of us are not too young to recall John leading the fight for the 1991 gulf war resolution.
He played a major role in ensuring that America's missile defense system was built, and deployed.
On being named chairman of the Armed Services Committee from 1999 to 2001, and then for 5 more years from 2003 to 2007, he worked closely with Democrats and Republicans to ensure that the interests of American security and the interests of our servicemen and women were met.
As chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Warner saw an emerging threat from radical terrorists that many others overlooked. And he acted on it by creating a new Emerging Threats Subcommittee on terrorism, chemical and biological warfare and cyberwarfare.
He pushed and succeeded in approving a major increase in the Nation's submarine fleet.
He has guided the annual Defense authorization act through Congress for years, using it in recent years to modernize our armed forces and to meet current and emerging threats in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He has been a firm supporter and a trusted friend to the brave men and women bravely serving the cause of freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Closer to home, Senator Warner secured major Federal funding to rebuild the Woodrow Wilson Bridge that connects Alexandria to Maryland, easing the commute for millions and improving the flow of commerce along the I-95 corridor between Maryland, Virginia, and the DC area.
He has worked hard to improve the water quality and to restore wildlife in the Chesapeake Bay. He has designated thousands of acres of National Forest as wilderness, expanded Virginia's National Wildlife Refuges and National Parks, and secured funds to demolish the Embrey Dam.
He led a 3-year campaign to preserve the Newport News shipbuilding shipyard in Hampton Roads--a show of grit and persistence that paid off with thousands of jobs for southeastern Virginia.
Senator Warner has been unafraid, at times, to part ways with his colleagues when he disagreed with them--but he has never lost their trust, their confidence, their respect, or their deep admiration.
In everything, he has been the consummate Senator, and always a gentleman. And the Senate will never be the same without John Warner.
On a more personal note, the entire Senate family shared John's happiness when he married Jeanne, not least of all because we all enjoy her company so much.
Elaine and I have valued their friendship over the past several years.
John, I know, is a proud graduate of Washington and Lee.
The school's motto--``Not Unmindful of the Future''--is meant to impress on graduates a sense of responsibility to the future, rooted in the past.
In a long career of service to the current and future good of his country, John William Warner has made that motto his own.
Virginia has produced some of America's greatest leaders. John William Warner is one of them.
His colleagues in the Senate are deeply grateful for his service, his friendship, and his many contributions to this body and to the Nation.
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