[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2141-E2142]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

TRIBUTE IN MEMORY OF FORMER CONGRESSMAN HENRY B. GONZALEZ

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speech of

HON. MARCY KAPTUR

of ohio

in the house of representatives

Tuesday, December 5, 2000

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, it is with great sadness that I rise to pay
tribute to the remarkable life and career of our trusted former
colleague, the Honorable Henry Gonzalez of Texas. Dogged, brilliant,
committed, indefatigable, a champion for the destitute--such was our
Chairman of the Banking Committee. During my early years in the
Congress, as a member of that committee, I had the great pleasure of
serving with this able gentleman. He served in the tradition of
Franklin Roosevelt, a man who believed in opportunity for all Americans
and dedicated his life to that cause.

[[Page E2142]]

On the Banking Committee, his work in improving housing for people
from all walks of life and incomes is legendary. In him ticked a strong
democratic heart. Every corner of America is better because of his
service. He stood up for human rights here at home and abroad, no
matter what the cost. He was unflinching when he knew his cause was
just.
Recently, as we broke ground for the dedication of the new World War
II Memorial in our Nation's capital, I especially named Henry Gonzalez
as a key figure in congressional efforts to pass legislation to bring
that element to full life as a part of our Nation's history. He was a
gentleman with many facets, and many concerns. He was a son of the
World War II generation that preserved liberty for modern times, and
his selfless dedication grew from that experience and his own humble
beginnings. I include here those remarks for the Record.
In extending deepest sympathy to his family, including his son
Charles who has succeeded him in this Congress, I am mindful that those
of us who have been influenced by his great mind and soul have been
lifted to service above self. May he rest in peace and the good works
that he fashioned inspire others for generations to come. Truly he was
a man both ahead of his time, and a pioneer to the future.

Remarks by the Honorable Marcy Kaptur at World War II Memorial
Groundbreaking Ceremony, November 11, 2000

Reverend Clergy, Mr. President, Honored Guests All. We, the
children of freedom, on this first Veterans' Day of the new
century, gather to offer highest tribute, long overdue, and
our everlasting respect, gratitude, and love to Americans of
the 20th century whose valor and sacrifice yielded the modern
triumph of liberty over tyranny. This is a memorial not to a
man but to a time and a people.
This is a long-anticipated day. It was 1987 when this
Memorial was first conceived. As many have said, it has taken
longer to build the Memorial than to fight the war. Today,
with the support of Americans from all walks of life, our
veterans service organizations and overwhelming, bipartisan
support in Congress, the Memorial is a reality. I do not have
the time to mention all the Members of Congress who deserve
thanks for their contributions to this cause, but certain
Members in particular must be recognized. Rep. Sonny
Montgomery, now retired, a true champion of veterans in the
House, and Senator Strom Thurmond, our unfailing advocate in
the Senate, as well as Rep. Bill Clay, of Missouri and two
retired Members, Rep. Henry Gonzalez and Senator John Glenn.
At the end of World War I, the French poet Guillaume
Apollinaire declaring himself ``against forgetting'' wrote of
his fallen comrades: ``You asked neither for glory nor for
tears.''
Five years ago, at the close of the 50th anniversary
ceremonies for World War II, Americans consecrated this
ground with soil from the resting places around the world of
those who served and died on all fronts. We, too, declared
ourselves against forgetting. We pledged then that America
would honor and remember their selfless devotion on this Mall
that commemorates democracy's march.
Apollinaire's words resonated again as E.B. Sledge
reflected on the moment the Second World War ended: ``. . .
sitting in a stunned silence, we remembered our dead . . . so
many dead . . . Except for a few widely scattered shouts of
joy, the survivors of the abyss sat hollow-eyed, trying to
comprehend a world without war.''
Yes. Individual acts by ordinary men and women in an
extraordinary time--one exhausting skirmish, one determined
attack, one valiant act of heroism, one digged determination
to give your all, one heroic act after another--by the
thousands--by the millions--bound our country together as it
has not been since, bound the living to the dead in common
purpose and in service to freedom, and to life.
As a Marine wrote about his company, `` I cannot say too
much for the men . . . I have seen a spirit of brotherhood .
. . that goes with one foot here amid the friends we see, and
the other foot there amid the friends we see no longer, and
one foot is as steady as the other.''
Today we break ground. It is only fitting that the event
that reshaped the modern world in the 20th century and marked
our nation's emergence from isolationism to the leader of the
free world be commemorated on this site.
Our work will not be complete until the light from the
central sculpture of the Memorial intersects the shadow cast
by the Washington Monument across the Lincoln Memorial
Reflecting Pool and the struggles for freedom of the 18th,
19th, and 20th centuries converge in one moment.
Here freedom will shine. She will shine.
This Memorial honors those still living who served abroad
and on the home front and also those lost--the nearly 300,000
Americans who died in combat, and those millions who survived
the war but who have since passed away. Among that number I
count my inspired constituent Roger Durbin of Berkey, Ohio, a
letter carrier who fought bravely with the Army's 101st
Armored Division in the Battle of the Bulge and who, because
he could not forget, asked me in 1987 why there was no
memorial in our nation's Capitol to which he could bring his
grandchildren. Roger is with us spiritually today. To help us
remember him and his contribution to America, we have with us
a delegation from his American Legion Post, the Joseph Diehn
Post in Sylvania, Ohio, and his beloved family, his widow
Marian his granddaughter, Melissa, an art historian and
member of the World War II Memorial Advisory Board.
This is a memorial to heroic sacrifice. It is also a
memorial for the living--positioned between the Washington
Monument and Lincoln Memorial--to remember how freedom in the
20th century was preserved for ensuing generations.
Poet Keith Douglas died in foreign combat in 1944 at age
24. In predicting his own end, he wrote about what he called
time's wrong-way telescope, and how he thought it might
simplify him as people looked back at him over the distance
of years. ``Through that lens,'' he demanded, ``see if I
seem/substance or nothing: of the world/deserving mention, or
charitable oblivion . . .'' And then he ended with the
request, ``Remember me when I am dead/and simplify me when
I'm dead.'' What a strange and striking charge that is!
And yet here today we pledge that as the World War II
Memorial is built, through the simplifying elements of stone,
water, and light. There will be no charitable oblivion.
America will not forget. The world will not forget. When we
as a people can no longer remember the complicated
individuals who walked in freedom's march--a husband, a
sister, a friend, a brother, and uncle, a father--when those
individuals become simplified in histories and in family
stories, still when future generations journey to this holy
place, America will not forget. Freedom's children will not
forget.

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