Floresville Veterans Post Office Building

Floor Speech

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Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Delegate Plaskett for yielding the time to me, and thank you so much also to the majority manager for speaking in favor of this bill. And certainly I also want to thank Chairman Chaffetz and Ranking Member Cummings for their leadership and support, along with the committee members, for bringing this bill to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 891, which designates the facility of the United States Postal Service, located at 141 Paloma Drive in Floresville, Texas, as the Floresville Veterans Post Office Building.

Floresville is the county seat of Wilson County, Texas, which has 4,636 veterans currently residing there. Just across the street from this postal facility is the Frank M. Tejeda Texas State Veterans Home, which currently houses about 154 of our American veterans. It is fitting that we provide this acknowledgement to our Floresville veterans directly across the street from where many of them live now.

There are many stories from veterans all across Wilson County that have served, but I want to highlight a few of those from Floresville. Let me start first with Frank Villarreal, who is a veteran who served in Vietnam with the U.S. Navy Seawolves helicopter squadron, which provided support for the Navy SEALs. Mr. Villarreal has received 15 awards for his service, including the Distinguished Flying Cross, the National Defense Service Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal with two Bronze Stars, the Vietnam Campaign Medal, the Gallantry Cross with Palm and Frame, the Civil Action Color with Palm and Frame, and the Combat Aircrewman Insignia.

To highlight a couple of other gentlemen also, Pedro Devora and Rufino Gonzales both served on the same ship in World War II, on the USS Sangamon. They survived a kamikaze attack on their vessel, and they went home to live long lives in Floresville.

Additionally, I want to also say that Mr. Devora and Mr. Gonzales obtained the medals they earned during their service that they recently just got from the Department of the Navy. For Mr. Devora, these medals are the World War II Victory Medal, the American Campaign Medal, the Presidential Unit Citation Ribbon, the Combat Action Ribbon, the Honorable Service Lapel Pin, and the Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal with the Bronze Star also.

For Mr. Gonzales, these medals include the World War II Victory Medal, the American Campaign Medal, the Presidential Unit Citation Ribbon, the Combat Action Ribbon, along with the Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal along with the Bronze Star also.

Again, those are only just a few examples of the men and women from Wilson County--in particular, from Floresville--that have served. So I want to acknowledge the sacrifice of those veterans along with the veterans from my 28th Congressional District, individuals who served and put their country ahead of self and for whom I am recognizing with the renaming of the Floresville postal facility service.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank also the work of The American Legion Post 38 in Floresville and the VFW Post 8555 in Wilson County for the work that they have done in supporting our local veterans. The VFW Post 8555 in Wilson County has done a great job, and I want to thank them.

So, Mr. Speaker, and to our ranking member and our ranking delegate, I just want to say thank you so much.

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