[Pages S14177-S14180]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

TRIBUTE TO STAN AND EUNICE KIMMITT

<bullet> Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I rise today to honor the lives of
two people very close to me, Montana, and the Senate. Stan and Eunice
Kimmitt were both remarkable individuals and touched many lives over
the years. In an effort to preserve their memory, I

[[Page S14178]]

think it is fitting that I share the kind remarks made at their
funerals with the full Senate.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the material be printed
in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

Eulogy to J. Stanley Kimmitt

(December 21, 2004, Ft. Myer Memorial Chapel)

The poet and dramatist William Butler Yeats once wrote:
``Being Irish, you know that in times of great joy you're
comforted by the thought that tragedy lurks around the
corner.'' Stan Kimmitt had a lot of Irishman in him. On March
20, 1972, my siblings and I threw a surprise 25th wedding
anniversary reception for my parents, during which I said a
few words. Driving to dinner that evening, my father was as
happy as I had ever seen him, so he returned to his Irish
roots and said, ``Let's talk about my funeral.'' ``Bob,'' he
said, ``I really liked your words today. For my funeral Mass,
I would like you to write the eulogy--but have your brother
Tom deliver it.'' In the ensuing 32 years, I never mustered
enough courage to ask what my delivery deficiencies were on
that March day long ago. But, since Dr. Tom is watching today
with Dad and our sisters Kathy and Margaret from premier
upper deck seats, the honor of both composing and delivering
brief remarks falls to me.
The first thing Dad would want me to do is to thank all of
you for joining us today. He would be humbled, but also very
pleased, by this turnout. Second, he would ask me to thank
all those who are involved in today's events, especially the
soldiers of the Old Guard, the Congressional Chorus, his
partner Deacon Vinnie Coates, and especially Archbishop Edwin
O'Brien of the Military Archdiocese. Archbishop O'Brien first
met my dad when serving as a young priest at West Point
during my years as a cadet. The Archbishop later volunteered
for military service himself, went to jump school, and served
as a combat chaplain in Vietnam with many of us in attendance
today in the 173rd Airborne Brigade and 1st Cavalry Division.
What a wonderful person not only to celebrate today's Mass,
but also to help provide spiritual direction to our brave
young servicewomen and men both at home and abroad.
We Catholics use the term ``celebrate'' even for funeral
Masses. We celebrate, because we firmly believe that our
father Stan is now in a better, more peaceful place. And that
is how I think of today, celebrating an extraordinary man and
the exemplary life of service he lived.
Dad did not come from a government or service background,
far from it. He was born in 1918 in Lewistown, Montana, the
son of a prosperous wheat farmer who was the largest
landowner in the fertile Judith Basin, and he later moved to
Great Falls. With the Great Depression, however, all material
wealth was lost, and his family's life story went from riches
to rags. However, he was firmly determined to be the first in
his family to attend college, which he did at the University
of Montana in Missoula. He admitted that he majored in
football and minored in bartending, but fortunately for his
later career, one class he did attend was an Asian History
course taught by a young professor named Mike Mansfield.
Dad was drafted in 1941 and was assigned to the mule-drawn
pack artillery of what would become the 10th Mountain
Division. Not wanting, as he said, to ``spend the war on the
south end of a mule,'' he went to Officer Candidate School at
Fort Sill and then trained and led Battery C, 309th Field
Artillery of the 78th ``Lightning'' Division from 1942 to
1945. Sixty years ago today, the battery was fighting in the
Battle of the Bulge, then proceeded to the Hurtgen Forest,
crossed the Rhine River at Remagen, and became the first
American division to occupy Berlin. Alongside him throughout
was then Colonel, later Major General Bob Schellman, my
parents' best man and my namesake and godfather, whose widow
Helen and son Jim are here today. In the recently written
words of Len Cravath, one of Dad's soldiers: ``Stan Kimmitt
was my Captain, our leader, and our inspiration.'' Lewis
Guidry, another soldier, called me and said: ``Your father
took a bunch of boys and turned us into men. We will never
forget him.''
In the Korean War, Dad commanded the 48th Field Artillery
Battalion of the 7th Infantry Division. His bravery during
the Battle of Pork Chop Hill was immortalized in S.L.A.
Marshall's book of the same name. Less well known is an
incident recounted in a recently-published book called ``On
Hallowed Ground, the Last Battle for Pork Chop Hill:''
``Lieutenant Colonel Kimmitt was an aggressive, hard-charging
artillery commander who always worked closely with the
infantry. He was at the infantry battalion CP when the
personnel carrier brought Ray Barry . . . to the nearby
battalion aid station. Kimmitt went into the aid station, and
saw his former battery commander, Ray Barry, on a table,
obviously critically wounded and near death. . . . A few
minutes earlier, the 7th Division G-2 had arrived by
helicopter. Kimmitt, seeing the severity of Barry's wounds,
went immediately to the helicopter and told the waiting pilot
to fly the wounded officer to the MASH. . . . At first the
pilot balked, and told Kimmitt the helicopter belonged to the
division G-2. With a few choice, sharp words Kimmitt said he
did not give a damn who it belonged to, the pilot would fly
the wounded Ray Barry to a MASH, right now. When Kimmitt told
the battalion surgeon who examined Barry he had a helicopter
to evacuate him, the doctor's words were less than
encouraging. `He won't make it to the MASH. He's lost too
much blood.' '' Ray Barry, who won a Silver Star for his
bravery that day, is today alive, well, and a retired Colonel
in Texas.
In 1955, Dad was assigned to the Office of the Chief of
Legislative Liaison, ``Army L&L,'' where he reacquainted
himself with Mike Mansfield and befriended such titans as
Richard Russell, John Stennis, Everett Dirksen, John Pastore,
Theodore Francis Green, Stuart Symington, and Scoop Jackson.
In 1960 we moved to Germany, first to Heidelberg then to
Baumholder. In August 1961, he was with the battle group of
the 8th Infantry Division that drove from the Soviet
checkpoint at Helmstedt to Berlin shortly after the Wall went
up to assert Allied transit rights. He later commanded the
8th Division Artillery, which included an Airborne Artillery
Battalion, so he started the family's airborne heritage by
going to jump school at age 44.
In 1966 he accepted Mike Mansfield's offer to retire from
the Army to become Secretary for the Majority, where he
served for 11 years; then he won a contested vote and was
Secretary of the Senate from 1977 to 1981. The Wall Street
Journal wrote a piece during this time, describing him as
``The Man at the Senate's Back Door,'' and, though always a
loyal Democrat, his approach to his work in the Senate was
nicely summarized in a letter Bob Dole sent to my mother:
``So sorry to learn of Stan's passing. I need not tell you
what a good man he was. I can tell you he was loved and
respected by all the `Senate family' regardless of party.''
One of Dad's proudest achievements in the Senate was when
he, together with Senators Warner and Mathias, got all 100
Senators to sponsor the bill granting land on the Mall for
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Next time you are there,
please look for the small brass marker at the back of the
Wall's apex and you will see Dad's name. He was particularly
pleased that the Vietnam Memorial helped pave the way for his
generation's memorials: Korean War, FDR, and World War II,
the dedication of which he attended with our son Mac, who was
born on his grandfather's birthday. Mac told us later that
his grandfather asked if it were OK to leave the ceremony a
bit early, because Dad was embarrassed by so many people
thanking him for his service. (He probably also wanted to
beat the traffic!)
Dad's third career, as a company Washington representative,
lasted 10 years, during which time he worked on the Apache
attack helicopter and other programs for Hughes Helicopter
Company, which was acquired by McDonnell Douglas and later by
The Boeing Company. In 1991, he then started the consulting
firm of Kimmitt, Coates & McCarthy with his friends George
McCarthy and Vinnie Coates, and after George's death, Dad and
Vinnie joined David Senter and John Weinfurter in forming
Kimmitt, Senter, Coates & Weinfurter, for which he was
Chairman until the day he died.
To give you an idea of the pace at which Dad lived his
life, I would note that this year alone, at age 86, he had
visited his beloved Montana seven times, including just two
weeks before he died. He had also traveled in August to
Belgium to celebrate with his friend, U.S. Ambassador Tom
Korologos, the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Hoeselt,
a small town east of Brussels, and in November he attended
the 78th Division Reunion in Biloxi, Mississippi. On the last
day of his life, December 7, he organized his desk, stopped
in at Boeing, dropped by the Senate Democratic cloakroom,
shopped at the Ft. Myer Commissary for my mother, went by his
office, then went to a farewell reception for Senator John
Breaux, whom Dad admired from the day he arrived in the
Senate. If Dad could not be with his natural family at his
death, he would have wanted to go just as he did--surrounded
by Democrats, with no pain or struggle, with his boots on.
Debbie Boylan, of the Democratic Leadership Council, wrote:
``I was with him on Tuesday at the party for Senator Breaux,
and thought you'd like to know that he seemed like a very
happy man that night: He was the first to arrive, had a smile
and a chuckle for everyone he met, and--as he put it, `as the
senior Democrat in the room'--made short, eloquent remarks
about the Senate and Senator Breaux. Please know this: On
that night, as I'm sure on many others, he was surrounded by
people who loved him.'' Jodi Bannerman, who was also there
that evening, wrote: ``Stan told an anecdote to the DLC and
its guests of Russell Long, saying Long once said: `When I
have a friend, I have a friend. I'll fight for him or her
until hell freezes over. And then, I'll fight on the ice.' ''
And Dad fought on the ice for many people. If you were
down, in trouble, or just in need of a friendly, non-
judgmental listener, he was your man. He looked up to many,
down to none, and right in the eye to all. Even after almost
50 years in Washington, he never looked over your shoulder to
see if someone ``more important'' were approaching. At a 78th
Division reunion in Pittsburgh several years ago, he was with
his friend and divisionmate, former Congressman Lionel Van
Deerlin and his daughters. Liz Van Deerlin recounted in a
recent note: ``My sister, my dad, and I walked Stan back to
his hotel which was about 6 blocks away. There was a guy on
crutches with one leg who had

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a cup out for some cash. Stan was ahead of us in his stride
and he went right up to this guy, gave him some money and
they talked a bit, but I was moved at how Stan treated him.
He didn't avoid eye contact and hurriedly drop cash into his
cup, he lingered a while and had somewhat of a conversation
with this man, who thanked him heartily. If I didn't know
better, I would have thought they knew one another.''
My wife Holly captured this sentiment when discussing which
photograph we should use for Dad's obituary in the Washington
Post, one from his younger days or a more recent one: ``I
would not use the younger one. That was definitely Stan, but
of a younger, different time, at the height of his
professional prime. I like the older one because, to me, that
is who he really was. He came into his own as an older man,
still busy, productive, and effective, but he had a more
loving and lovable way about him, a person who knows how
great his life has been, how good he has it, has taken the
sadness in stride and still looked forward to every moment of
every day and reveled in contact with every person he met.''
In the hundreds of cards, e-mails, phone messages, and
visits since Dad's death, the most heartwarming and humbling
words have been how his family--children, grandchildren,
great grandson--are reflections of his life well lived. I
know how very proud Dad was that government service was and
is an essential element of the professional careers of his
children. He was very proud of Judy's long service in the
Senate, most recently with Senator Carper; Mary's time with
both the National Park Service and now ministering to the
health needs of the women and men and families of the 1st
Infantry Division as an Army Physician's Assistant in
Bamberg, Germany; Mark's military career and especially his
recent service in Iraq and the Gulf; Jay's time both in the
House and Senate and the Army; and my service in the Army and
the White House and several departments--even in Republican
Administrations! Dad's pride in his children knew no
political boundaries.
Dad was a man of character, but no eulogy would be complete
without mentioning that he also was a character. Just saying
the following words will bring smiles to many faces here
today: gutters; leg wrestling; frequent flyer miles; tennis
shorts & black socks; large paper napkins, especially if
embossed; and Unterberg. And several of you have shared some
of the phrases we heard so often from him:

``Enunciate !''
``Wheels rolling.''
``Plan your work and work your plan!''
``Do something, even if it's wrong!''
``You decide what you want to be in life; then be the best at
it.''
``Into every life a little rain must fall, but we don't have
to be drenched by it.''
And, the one all the grandchildren know by heart: ``An excuse
is an opiate
administered by nature to deaden the pain of mediocrity.''

Archbishop, two days before Dad died, he went to his last
Mass at the Chapel at Georgetown University Hospital. Why,
you might ask, would he drive from McLean to the District for
Mass? Well, the Mass at Georgetown Hospital is never more
than 35 minutes long; there is no music and no collection;
and they validate your parking ticket. That was his kind of
Mass. And, in another vein, I am sure that I know my Dad's
last two thoughts before dying. One would surely have been of
Mom and the family, but I am equally sure the other would
have been: ``Thank God I mailed the Christmas letters!''
My brother Jay asked me to note that the vast majority of
the Washington legislative community treated Dad with respect
and inclusion to the day he passed. As we all know, one
becomes less relevant the longer one is away from positions
of power in I this town. On the day Dad died, he was leaving
Boeing and he turned to a receptionist and said, ``Thanks for
putting up with an old soldier.'' Actually, Dad may have used
a noun other than ``soldier.'' The Kimmitt family would like
to thank the entire legislative community for their kindness
to and respect for Dad over all these years.
Let me close with one final anecdote. In 1978, at the peak
of Dad's career in the Senate, Holly and I were introduced to
Congressman and Mrs. Lucien Nedzi at a Christmas party. Mrs.
Nedzi's eyes lit up, and she asked, ``Are you related to . .
. Eunice Kimmitt, the school bus driver?'' No one would have
been more pleased than Dad to hear Mom's service as a St.
John's School bus driver in the 1950's recognized. In
discussing preparations for his funeral after my brother
Tom's interment last December, he said he had only three
requests: (1) to be buried in Arlington Cemetery at the site
where our sister Margaret was buried in 1959; (2) to have
``Oh, Shenandoah'' sung during the service, as was done so
splendidly by the members of the Congressional Chorus as we
entered the chapel; and (3) to make sure that Mom as well as
he was recognized in these remarks.
Eunice Wegener Kimmitt also led a life of service, both as
a young Red Cross girl in Europe during World War II and as
an Army wife and mother who sent her husband and sons off to
wars in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. But even more, she was and
is the firm foundation of our family--no matter how many
times we moved to new houses, we always knew that home was
where Mom was. Dad would have said that this eulogy is as
much about Mom's service and contributions as his--and he
felt that way for all their nearly six decades together. Mom,
thanks for what you meant to Dad and still mean to all of us.
Please note in your program that you are welcome either to
join us at the graveside service immediately following this
Mass or to proceed directly to the Officers Club, where the
family looks forward to greeting you after the interment.
Whether you are at the gravesite today or later, you will see
that there is a clear view of the Capitol Building from the
site, which was selected serendipitously 45 years ago when
our sister died. We will also be burying with Dad soil from
Lewistown and Great Falls, Montana; Baumholder, Germany; and
the Capitol grounds. Only symbols, but powerful symbols, of
the life and life of service you have kindly allowed me to
share with you today.
I can almost hear Dad tapping his feet and saying: ``Let's
get moving so these good people can get back to work!'' In
such moments, there is just one reply: ``Yes, sir, Colonel!''
Dad, thank you for the life of service you lived and for the
example that will inspire many more such lives in generations
today and to come. We love you, we miss you, we will see you
again.
Well done, Soldier. Be thou at peace.
____

Eulogy to Eunice L. Kimmitt

(December 3, 2005, St. Agnes Catholic Church, Arlington, Virginia)

Shortly after Mom and Dad were married, she wrote in their
brand new family album that her favorite poem was entitled
``If'' by Rudyard Kipling. That poem, which is printed in
full on the back of your program, captures the spirit of the
mother, grandmother, and friend whom we remember today. Let
me read just several lines from the poem:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it

The earth was Mom's, and now so much more.
Even though Mom was among the first in her family to go to
college and had worked both at home and abroad for six years
before she was married, she wrote in that same album that her
goal in life was ``to be a good wife and mother.'' She
achieved that goal, and so much more.
In the words of the Old Testament, our mother was ``a wife
of noble character''--and she lived with a noble character.
No man ever had a more faithful, hardworking, and devoted
spouse than did our father, even though he delighted in
expressing his respect and appreciation in unusual ways.
Though she had to call the Senate Cloakroom most nights to
overcome the uncertainty of when he would be home, there was
no uncertainty when he called to ask, ``Old Mother, do you
have any steaks defrosted?'' That meant at least one, and
more likely a half dozen, Montanans were about to descend on
Mom for the evening. Once there, they got a great steak
dinner (2\1/2\" New York strips, specially cut at Safeway).
Drinks continued after dinner, but only with Mom--since Dad
would have left her and his friends as soon as his steak was
down.
It is a great honor to us, but especially to Mom, that the
senior Montanan in Washington, Senator Max Baucus, is with us
today. Senator, thank you for your service to our country and
your friendship to our family.
But it wasn't just Montanans. Former Senator Fritz Hollings
from South Carolina was among the many Senators who called to
express his condolences, and he related the following about
his first night in Washington as a new Senator forty years
ago, ``Your Daddy asked me what I was doing for dinner, and
an hour later I was eating a big Montana steak with him and
that dear, strong Eunice.'' On our honeymoon a decade later,
Holly and I stayed with friends of my parents in Dublin. On
arrival--I think even before hello--Frank Fitzpatrick said,
``My God, we're still talking about those steaks.''
Senator and Mrs. Hollings were with Mom and Dad on their
trip to Paris, mentioned in the obituary in The Washington
Post, during which Mom injured herself in a fall. To
paraphrase Paul Harvey, you will now know the rest of the
story. Mom and Dad had gone to Mass at Sacre Coeur on the
Montmarte one rainy evening, and, because Dad was not one to
take a cab, they were hustling (he was always hustling) down
wet, steep, centuries-old steps to the Metro, and my mother
took a hard fall, breaking her upper arm and knee. When we
saw her at Walter Reed after her Medevac trip home, Dad was
at her bedside and, in his most compassionate and
understanding way, said, ``Well, they told me Paris would
cost me an arm and a leg, but I didn't believe that till
now.'' Mom's reaction to hearing this comment, I am sure not
for the first time, was a wan smile through her casts and
bandages.
Everyone who knew my mother knew how much she loved sports.
She herself played basketball, tennis, and golf when she was
younger, and she swatted a mean ping pong

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paddle later in life. While she loved any sport on
television, watching her beloved Redskins was her real
passion. Once in the 1970's, during the Redskins' heyday, she
and Dad were in Europe when the Redskins were playing an
important Monday night game. My Dad awoke about 5 a.m. on the
Tuesday morning--11 p.m. Monday night Washington time--to
find Mom lying very still on the floor next to their bed.
Alarmed, he called out to her, only to be told to ``Be quiet,
Stan!''--because she was listening to the `Skins on the Armed
Forces Network using a transistor radio she brought for the
occasion, and reception was better on the floor.
But, as much as we laugh about those stories now, the most
remarkable thing is that Mom's role as spouse never once kept
her from performing well her other life's goal as a mother.
In the first twenty years of their marriage, the family lived
in ten different houses, in four states, and on two
continents. Change was a constant in our lives, as it was for
all service families of that era and today. But no matter
where we were or what house we were in, we always knew that
home was where Mom was. Dad traveled or was deployed
frequently in those years, and though his strong persona was
never far from our thoughts, Mom was never far from our
sides--and always on our side. I remember Dad at many of
my Little League games, but I remember Mom at all of them,
and I can still see her, vividly, running along the fence
with her arms held high as I circled the bases after my
first home run at the McLean Little League fields.
But one thing Mom left out of the album those many years
ago was a goal she achieved nonetheless--world's greatest
grandmother. While I do not recall a lot of gum, candy, soft
drinks, or Pringles in our home growing up, there were entire
shelves--lower shelves, of course--and a separate
refrigerator filled with whatever her grandchildren's little
hearts desired. For those who can join us at our home for the
reception after Mass, you will be treated to a Eunice Kimmitt
menu that will include these and many more of her favorites.
What a gift it was and is that the grandchildren and she--as
well as my Dad--got to know each other so well. And she was
so very proud of her grandchildren, and fiercely protective
of each of them.
Mom was a person of deep and abiding faith. She was raised
Methodist in Napoleon, Missouri, in a church whose hymnals
were in German, so it was big news in that small town when
she returned from Germany in 1947 as a pregnant Catholic
married to an Irishman from Montana. And, just like
naturalized American citizenship, no one appreciates the
Catholic faith like a convert who embraces the faith later in
life on their own initiative. From weekly confession--even
when my Dad was in Korea and the confessional sessions must
have been brief--through weekly Holy Communion when she was
homebound, and then Last Rites just before she died, Mom's
faith was an integral part of her being and thus the legacy
she leaves to all of us.
Indeed, I am firmly of the view that my mother was and is a
saint. I am as sure of that fact as I am of any tenet of my
faith. For 16 of the 18 years our brother Tom lived after his
accident in 1985, Mom spent an average of six hours a day
with him, every day of every year, whether in Arlington,
Washington, Alexandria, or Richmond, as we, led by her,
sought the best possible care for Tom. That is over 35,000
hours, or 4 full years, at Tom's side. Many in the Church
today visited Mom and Tom at some point during that period,
and I am sure felt, as did I, that we were privileged to be
in the presence of two of God's most blessed children, now
reunited by and with Him. And I would like to offer
particular thanks to Father Roos and the St. Agnes community,
who were so attentive to Tom and Mom during those many years
when Tom was just down the road at Cherrydale Nursing Home.
So, if Holly is right--that Dad met Mom at the Pearly Gates
last Friday with a cigarette, glass of wine, and a to-do
list--I am pretty sure that Mom told Dad, after hugging him,
Kathy, Margaret, and Joe, that sitting down to continue her
personal Scrabble tournament with Tom was at the top of her
to-do list. And as they sat down for their first game after a
twenty-year break, I know Tom's first words to her were,
``Mom, thanks. I always knew you were there.''
And I also know that at 2:30 p.m. this afternoon, they and
Dad will all say, as they did so many years in person, ``Go
Army, Beat Navy!''<bullet>

____________________