Tom Latham

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize William Ferry, a World War II Army veteran from Boone, Iowa, and to express my appreciation for his dedication and commitment to his country. The Boone News Republican is currently running a series of articles that honors one Boone County veteran every Tuesday from Memorial Day to Veterans Day. William Ferry was recognized on Tuesday, October 5. Below is the article in its entirety: Boone County Veterans: William Ferry (By Greg Eckstrom) William Ferry joined the Army, along with his cousin, for pretty much the usual reasons. ``My cousin and I, we were going to be big shots,'' Ferry said with a laugh. In many ways, Ferry was. Originally from Pilot Mound, and returning to Boone after World War II, where he lived at the same address his whole life, Ferry entered his military career by volunteering rather than being drafted. ``My cousin and I decided to join the Army and see the world, so we went down and joined the Army,'' he said. ``Well, that's the last I'd seen of him for three years.'' Ferry, although speaking in a serious voice, seemed to put a lighter spin on his military experience than some. In recalling his basic training at Spokane, Wash., Ferry remembers learning how to type. ``They asked if I could type,'' he said. ``And they gave me a book and said, `Here, you've got a week to learn.' They give me a book and let me go.'' The definition of self-taught. Ferry breezed through the book and learned to use a typewriter, admittedly saying that fortunately he didn't have to learn how to type extremely quickly. While going through basic training in Washington, Ferry met the woman he would later marry . . . a marriage that happened prior to Ferry heading overseas for service. The position that Ferry was assigned to, however, didn't lend itself to easing the worries of his new bride's parents on their daughter's husband. ``They put me in a cryptographic section, which is decoding and encoding secret messages,'' he said. ``The FBI checked out my family, her family and everybody she knew and everybody they knew. Her folks got to wondering what was going on.'' The background check passed, however, and Ferry was sent overseas. ``They got us on a boat, and they made MPs out of us,'' he said. ``We had to be an MP . . . had to work four hours on and four hours off for seven days a week for 31 days. And we ended up in India.'' The boat pulled into a harbor with a large sign supported on two columns, reading ``Gateway to India.'' They had landed in Bombay. Ferry was put onto a train and traveled for a week until he arrived at his post--a building that, putting it lightly, was a rather safe place to be stationed. ``We went to a building that was inside of a compound that had about a 10 foot wall around us,'' he said. ``We worked behind locked doors and we had to decode and encode incoming messages and outgoing messages to the headquarters.'' The work was interesting, however the climate was hot. Ferry said it took him six months just to get used to the heat. Then came the monsoons. ``They blew the roof off of our barracks one night, which was made out of grass,'' he said. ``I never heard it rain so hard than down there when that monsoon hit. It really rained.'' Ferry recalls one night that he was working alone at the compound, decoding a message that had come in while a general paced back and forth behind him. Ferry wasn't sure what he was there for, but he decoded the message, and watched the general grab it and take off. He found out the next day that the message he had decoded was the one giving the orders to bomb Hiroshima. Heading back to the United States following his time overseas, Ferry recalls arriving in Miami and the feeling of relief to be back in his country. ``I got back to Miami, got down and kissed the ground,'' he said. Returning, arguably as a big shot, Ferry fondly recalls his time in the service, noting his favorite part as being the opportunity to travel. ``Just seeing the world,'' he said. I commend William Ferry for his many years of loyalty and service to our great nation. It is an immense honor to represent him in the United States Congress, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Amanda Terhark of Iowa Falls, Iowa, as the recipient of the Art Educators of Iowa (AEI), 2010 Outstanding Middle School Art Educator award for her dedication to her students and art. She accepted the award on October 2, 2010, at the AEI conference in Sioux City, Iowa. Amanda splits her time as an art teacher at Riverbend Middle School and Rock Run Elementary School and has been teaching art for seven years. This is her first teaching position and the first time she is getting recognized for her work. When Amanda found out she was nominated for the award last summer, she asked Riverbend Middle School's principal Jeff Burchfield to write a letter of recommendation. In his letter, Mr. Burchfield praised her work both in the classroom and the community. He wrote: ``She has high expectations for student performance and behavior, yet her teaching style is one of mutual respect and admiration . . . [Amanda] genuinely cares for the students in her classroom, and this is evident in the way that she interacts with them and builds connections with them.'' Amanda has always put her students first. She was instrumental in starting an art club at Riverbend Middle School five years ago and in 2008, for her final project for her master's degree, Amanda involved her students by including some of their artwork in her exhibit. Amanda Terhark is an incredible teacher, and her dedication to her profession and to her students should make every Iowan proud. It's an honor to represent her and the people of the Iowa Falls Community School District in the United States Congress, and I know that my colleagues in the House join me in congratulating Amanda on this well- deserved award and thanking her for her dedicated service to her community and America's youth.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize Dean Briley, a World War II Navy veteran from Boone, Iowa, and to express my appreciation for his dedication and commitment to his country. The Boone News Republican is currently running a series of articles that honors one Boone County veteran every Tuesday from Memorial Day to Veterans Day. Dean Briley was recognized on Tuesday, October 19. Below is the article in its entirety: Boone County Veterans: Dean Briley (By Greg Eckstrom) Military service for the Briley family was a family affair. Dean Briley, a Boone County native, along with his three brothers, all found themselves serving their country overseas during WWII, although each stationed in different areas. For Briley, with the war already raging, he enlisted in the United States Navy in 1942 as a petty officer third class. He was sworn-in in Des Moines and was sent to Boot Camp at Great Lakes, Ill., near Chicago. Boot camp in the winter in the Midwest was, to say the least, a bit chilly. ``It was cold,'' Briley said flatly. ``We didn't have any hot water. We were in a new barracks, and they hadn't gotten hot water to it yet, so we shaved and everything in cold water.'' Following boot camp, Briley and his wife were sent to Arlington, Va., where they didn't have a place to stay, but had jobs. ``The first place I went to was in Washington D.C. at the Bureau of Naval Personnel, supervising naval and civilian personnel,'' Briley said. ``When we went, they didn't have a place for us, so we had to find our own lodging. I guess the first couple of nights we stayed in the Red Cross place until we found a place to live. We were figuring officers' longevity pay. I was there a year and a half. My wife was with me then. She worked in the Navy Department. In Arlington, same place I did. We lived in Washington, D.C.'' From there, Briley went through amphibious training and was assigned to LC1 Flotilla 28 staff. The flotilla consisted of 28 ships, with Briley stationed on one of the smallest. At 150 feet long and only 25 feet wide, it was the smallest seagoing vessel that could cross the ocean by itself. ``I had never actually seen the ocean until then,'' Briley said. ``It only drew four feet of water, it had a flat bottom and it was like a cork out there.'' The small ship sailed from Norfolk, Va. to Bizerte, Tunisia in a 150-ship convoy. The trip took 21 days, after detouring for three days to avoid German submarines. Once the ship arrived on land, Briley said they couldn't have liberty in Bizerte since it was quarantined with black plague, so the men were given a two-day pass to go to Tunis. ``We met up with a soldier that knew a family there and he would give them some rations that included bacon,'' he said. ``We stayed the night with them and had bacon and eggs for breakfast. That was a treat.'' Briley spent 1\1/2\ years in the Mediterranean Sea area, with much of the time spent in port. The day-to-day tasks for him included primarily making a news sheet for the men. He recalls one particular time, while he was in Palermo, that he had a chance to see the catacombs. ``We went down in the catacombs,'' he said. There were bodies laying right out on shelves and stuff. I don't think they show those anymore.'' Meanwhile, Briley had no communication with his brothers. In fact, while he was headed overseas, one of his brothers was headed back to the United States with an injury--one that could have been much worse. ``He was in a foxhole when a bomb hit alongside him and buried him, but his head went into his helmet and then after they took care of the wounded up above, they dug him out and he ended up with just some back injury,'' he said. ``They were in on the front line for I think it was over 300 days.'' One interesting event for Briley also came after he and a friend borrowed a Jeep while in Naples and ventured to Rome. Although the two didn't do much inside the city, they did go to the Vatican and managed to be in the right place at the right time for a chance meeting with Pope Pius XII. He walked up to Briley, said ``Hello American sailor,'' and blessed the religious items that Briley had been holding. Briley also kissed his ring. ``It was just luck,'' he said. ``It was a big room. Then he comes out, just being friendly.'' When Briley returned from Europe, he was on leave before returning to Norfolk, Va. To meet a ship to go through the Panama Canal to the Pacific when the bombs were dropped on Japan. The news that the war had ended shortly after brought a different feeling than excitement for Briley. ``It was more relief,'' he said. ``Actually, it's more for the family than anything.'' I commend Dean Briley for his many years of loyalty and service to our great nation. It is an immense honor to represent him in the United States Congress, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize Bert Doran, a World War II Marine Corps veteran from Boone, Iowa, and to express my appreciation for his dedication and commitment to his country. The Boone News Republican is currently running a series of articles that honors one Boone County veteran every Tuesday from Memorial Day to Veterans Day. Bert Doran was recognized on Tuesday, October 26. Below is the article in its entirety: Boone County Veterans: Bert Doran (By Greg Eckstrom) ``I was lucky I lived.'' The sentence came from Bert Doran, a Marine Corps veteran who served in World War II under harsh fighting. He was injured in Iwo Jima after three days of fighting in which half of his company was killed. Doran, however, isn't exactly one to go down without a fight. It's that spirit that drove the 19\1/2\ year old who was born in South Dakota and moved to Boone at age 7 to join the military. Some guys he knew said they were going to do it, and Doran decided he wanted to do it, too. The reason he picked the Marine Corps as his branch of choice was a decision explained just as easily. ``It's supposed to be an elite outfit, so it's what I picked,'' he said. United States Marine Corps, third division, ninth regiment, third battalion, K company was where Doran ended up, and after signing up he was sent to California for boot camp. Boot camp was in San Diego, followed by training at a portion of Camp Pendleton up in the hills, ``where all the snakes were,'' Doran said. Boot camp was, as a bit of an understatement, tough. ``Boot camp was some of the toughest training,'' he said. ``It was 8 weeks, and I had to stay an extra two weeks because I couldn't swim.'' Tough was also a definition, also an understatement, that fit Doran, though. ``I decided I was going to make it through it, so I did,'' he said. ``I lost a lot of weight after I went through boot camp.'' Leaving Camp Pendleton, Doran was next sent overseas to Guam for further training. ``It was supposed to be secured, but we had an eight day push to the jungles to clean out what was left,'' he said. ``It was thick jungle. We had to use knives to chop through.'' There were also plenty of snakes in the jungle . . . although after time in the hills in Camp Pendleton, Doran was used to this. It was January of 1944 that Doran left Guam. Arriving at Iwo Jima on Feb. 26, 1945, he was greeted with fierce fighting. ``We were actually pinned down,'' he said. ``About half the company had been killed. We had to wait for replacements. The captain was killed the first day, my platoon lieutenant was killed the first day. About 200 in the company. About half of them were killed the first day.'' After three days of fighting, Doran was in a foxhole with two other men when a mortar shell hit. ``It killed the one guy,'' he said. ``I don't know what happened to the other one. I probably was temporarily knocked out, and then I pushed up through . . . The guys from the next foxhole came out and pulled me out, put a tourniquet on my arm. Then I was carried out of there.'' The soil at Iwo Jima was composed nearly entirely of volcanic ash. ``That's what that whole island was,'' Doran said. ``My face was completely full of it.'' Details are fuzzy for Doran, as he was on morphine at the time, but he remembers being shipped out on a hospital ship, sent to Saipan, and then flown to the Hawaiian islands. From there, after a month, he was sent to a hospital in Oakland, Calif., and finally to the Philadelphia Naval Hospital, where he stayed for 11 months. ``It was kind of a blur after I was wounded,'' he said. The blast had put so much volcanic ash into him that he had lost his eyesight. He said that at first, he could see a little light, but after a surgery was attempted to correct his vision, he could see nothing. ``They said my eyes were so full of that volcanic ash that they couldn't see into them,'' he said. ``That's the first thing I remembered at the hospital. One of their help was rubbing my face. Trying to get that ash out. I imagine it looked like a mask.'' For the man that got through boot camp with grit and determination, however, his lost vision didn't seem to slow him down. In his time at the hospital he learned Braille, and even took a trip up to New York City with a group. ``They took us from there for a week up to New York to the Institute for the Blind in New York City, and we were there for a week,'' he said. ``And they took us out to the big night clubs at night for eats and drinks. We met Guy Lombardo at the Roosevelt Hotel.'' He also married his wife, who was from Ogden, during a furlough. When he went back to Philadelphia Naval Hospital, his wife came with him and got a job at the facility. It was at the hospital that Doran was presented with the Purple Heart for his service to his country. After being discharged from the service, Doran received training at the Veterans Hospital in Des Moines on how to make rugs--a task he picked up quickly and enjoyed for years. ``I made rugs and that kind of stuff for 25 years,'' he said. ``I've got to liking it.'' Doran also keeps in contact with the men of K company-- sending out Christmas cards to a list that has slowly been dwindling as the years go on. These days, he sends out about 10-12 cards each year to men from the company. Billie Ellis, who works for Boone County Public Health, helps Doran out at home, and knowing him for 25 years she describes him as a perfectionist. ``He was a perfectionist and he still is,'' she said. ``He likes everything done right.'' Over the years, the ash has been taken from Doran's face, although one piece next to his nose did develop into cancer. ``They told me right before the surgery that a lot of them don't live through the surgery, so that didn't sound very good,'' he said. A lot of people don't live through the surgery, but even fewer survive a mortar shell landing in their foxhole. Doran went through the 11\1/2\ hour surgery 25 years ago without problems. After all, having survived Iwo Jima, cancer is just another challenge to overcome. Now, looking back on his time in the service, Doran vividly recalls stories of his service with sharp clarity. He claims that the military taught him discipline, and he's proud of joining a legacy of military service in his family--having had a brother, John F. Doran, fight in the Battle of the Bulge and his father serve in the Army during World War I. These days, Doran said, the military is different. Soldiers now use technologically advanced weapons. The soldiers that are fighting, however, don't seem to have changed much. Ellis has a son that just joined the Marine Corps. When he was seen off, in addition to family members, Doran was there as well. After all, Marines support each other--both in WWII and today. ``He wished my son good luck,'' Ellis said. ``They always talk about the Marines.'' I commend Bert Doran for his many years of loyalty and service to our great Nation. It is an immense honor to represent him in the United States Congress, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Maggie Parks of Marshalltown, Iowa, as the recipient of the Art Educators of Iowa, AEI, 2010 Art Teacher of the Year award for her dedication to her students and art. She accepted the award on October 2, 2010 at the AEI conference in Sioux City, Iowa. Maggie, who has been with the Marshalltown Community School District for 13 years, is currently an art teacher at Fisher Elementary School and at Woodbury Elementary School. The AEI Art Teacher of the Year award is the highest honor that can be given by the organization. One of Maggie's goals is to help improve art education throughout the state by serving on boards and assisting other teachers. She is responsible for starting a new mentoring program for first year art teachers in the state. Maggie would keep a list of things that would work and share it with other teachers in the state. In the past, Maggie was the president on the AEI board and served in several capacities with organization. She is highly respected in the school district as well as in the state of Iowa and is perceived by her peers as a leader at the school, district, and state level. Maggie Parks is an incredible teacher, and her dedication to her profession and to her students should make every Iowan proud. It's an honor to represent her and the people of the Marshalltown Community School District in the United States Congress, and I know that my colleagues in the House join me in congratulating Maggie on this well- deserved award and thanking her for her dedicated service to her community and America's youth.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize Ken Barkwill, a World War II Air Force veteran from Boone, Iowa, and to express my appreciation for his dedication and commitment to his country. The Boone News Republican is currently running a series of articles that honors one Boone County veteran every Tuesday from Memorial Day to Veterans Day. Ken Barkwill was recognized on Tuesday, November 2. Below is the article in its entirety: [From the Boone News Republican, Nov. 2, 2010] Boone County Veterans: Ken Barkwill (By Greg Eckstrom) Ken Barkwill found himself in World War II as a result of his love of model planes and trains. Not in a literal sense, mind you. It's likely that Barkwill would have been drafted into a branch of the military during WWII and called to serve his country, but this love of building models--a seemingly insignificant interest--set in motion a series of events that guided him through an intriguing life thus far, and one that was guided by these interests. Originally from Marion, this love of building models led a young Barkwill to a job at the local airport as a youth. As part of his pay, he received instruction at the airport and did some flying. He was hooked. ``That's why I wound up in the Air Force,'' he said. ``Back in '43, there was a draft and I was going to be drafted. I'd been in the civil air patrol in high school. If you wanted to, you could go sign up ahead of time, and I wanted to go into the Air Force, so I went in April and signed up to go into the Air Force and finally got called up in September.'' Barkwill took his training at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi. The training was, in a word, ``sandy.'' ``All I could think of was sand all over the place,'' Barkwill said. ``Hot and sandy.'' After getting through basic training, Barkwill went to college for five months at the University of Alabama before going to Texas where he worked on the line with guys waiting to get into school at Randolph Field in San Antonio. From there, Barkwill was sent to armament school in Denver, where after learning from others for his entire military career was given a strange offer from one of his instructors. ``Barkwill,'' he recalled the teacher asking. ``How would you like to stay in Denver?'' He was offered a job as an instructor, after being identified as a ``high achiever'' along with two other individuals. Having a girlfriend in Denver at the time, the decision was not difficult . . . especially for someone with a love of airplanes. ``That was an interesting stint,'' he said. ``We got B-17s in there. We didn't have a plane with a chin turret on it. One day they come in and belly-landed a B-17 and we wound up with that one to teach the chin turret on, because it didn't wipe it clear out. And then, B-29s were just out when I was there. We got some through there, too, and got to teach armament on them.'' Barkwill worked as an instructor from December of 1944 to July of 1945, when he was sent to a replacement depot in the Philippines. Upon arrival, Barkwill recalled a great deal of uncertainty. The depot was a jumping off point, and all he could do was wait for his orders, which came one day in the form of a simple phrase: ``Get your gear together, you're shipping out.'' He got on a truck and was transported down the road a few miles. Barkwill unloaded in a new camp with some others before being given his orders. ``There were several of us pulled out of the depot and moved down the road a ways to an outfit called recovered personnel,'' he said. ``And we were supposed to go in behind the first wave of troops in to Japan and evacuate POWs.'' Fortunately, the cover of the first wave of troops was not needed, as the two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, effectively ending the war. The war was over, but Barkwill's duties on the recovered personnel outfit were still needed, and he was sent to POW camps in Japan to look for soldiers, check out graves for information and report back. ``It was interesting work,'' he said. From there, Barkwill was sent to a different unit--this one in Cebu City in the Phillipines--for some more interesting work. He was to investigate claims that the Filipinos made in regards to G.I.s' stealing items. ``It was interesting,'' he said. ``They come in to our office. We set up an office down in Cebu City, and they come in and file applications with their claims. We had a bunch of Filipinos working for us, and they'd fill out their forms for them, and then we'd have to go out and investigate. Try to figure out whether they were legitimate or not. That was fun.'' Everything from stolen chickens, cows and bicycles was investigated, as best he could, by Barkwill and his men. He was there for only about a month before finally coming home in February of 1946. For Barkwill, his military experience, while not always pleasant, was beneficial. ``I . . . can't say I enjoyed it, but it was something I'll never forget,'' he said. ``It was . . . an education. Quite an education. To this day, I don't think it hurts anyone to spend some time in the military. I feel it's quite an enlightening education.'' That experience is also one that is not easy to share with a stranger. Barkwill said that it's a difficult topic for many veterans to share, with even their own families. ``I've enjoyed talking to a lot of old guys like myself around,'' he said. ``We've talked about things that happened. You get to talking about what happened here and there, and you talk about things you haven't thought about for years and things you never told your kids. My daughter from Colorado, it was just a couple of years ago, found out a little bit about my military history. She was asking me questions and so I sat down and told her a little bit about what had happened. It was interesting overseas to see what the Japanese had done, what they were doing and how they had dug in. They were there forever. They found some of them in recent years still living in the hills still thinking the war is on.'' It's also interesting, he said, how your memories work. Barkwill's wife, Mary, joked that he could remember his time in the military with such clarity, yet he doesn't remember what he did yesterday. ``Yeah, some of it comes back, Mary,'' he laughed. ``It's amazing how your memory works.'' Many of the memories came to Barkwill without any trouble as he recalled specific incidents. Being caught in a typhoon in Japan, finding a place for a haircut and a shave over there, and most of all arriving back in the United States after serving. ``Anybody that goes into the military, you get what you can out of it,'' he said. ``You go and serve your time and hope that you get home. I tell you, that's a thrill. When you get on a ship and come back under the Golden Gate Bridge and see that bridge up there and see that harbor and that ship pulls up to the dock and you know you're back on terra firma in the United States. That was very, very exciting for me.'' For Barkwill, it all started with a young man building models . . . and after the hobby managed to lead him into the military, it also brought him to the Boone & Scenic Valley Rail Road in 1983, where he joined the Boone Railroad Historical Society and designed and oversaw the construction of the depot for the new railroad. His reason for doing so? Model trains. It's amazing where a love for a simple hobby can take you, and the stories that follow as a result. I commend Ken Barkwill for his many years of loyalty and service to our great nation. It is an immense honor to represent him in the United States Congress, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize Harold Gildea, a World War II Army veteran from Boone, Iowa, and to express my appreciation for his dedication and commitment to his country. The Boone News Republican is currently running a series of articles that honors one Boone County veteran every Tuesday from Memorial Day to Veterans Day. Harold Gildea was recognized on Tuesday, September 28. Below is the article in its entirety: Boone County Veterans: Harold Gildea (By: Greg Eckstrom) Harold Gildea, a Luther native and World War II veteran, has had a varied military experience. During his time in the service, he's escorted General George S. Patton, had a chance meeting with a prisoner of war overseas from Boxholm, saw the end of World War II and helped guard a boat full of beer. Typical? Not really, but what was in World War II? Gildea was born in Luther, a town his family had lived in for 150 years. After graduating from Luther High School, he signed up for the draft on Feb. 16, 1942 and was drafted after graduation. By September of 1942, he was processed at Camp Dodge and sent to Missouri to become a Military Policeman with the 211th Military Police in the Army. ``I don't know how come, but I was chosen to be in this military police company in Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.,'' he said . . . a decision that he considered lucky, ``in a way.'' After training, Gildea was met with an assignment that was far from normal. He was sent to California at the end of May to help accompany Gen. Patton across the Mojave Desert. While the assignment was an honor, it was hot, to say the least. ``He'd run these tanks through an intersection, and our men would be there to direct him,'' Gildea said. ``You could only stand out in the intersection about 30 minutes and your feet would start to scald. We'd have to have men in there to keep changing. Those tanks, the dust would be 8 to 10 inches deep, and that hot sun's over 120 degrees.'' From California, he was sent to southern New Guinea to relieve MP's in the area. The fourth morning he was there, Gildea was at breakfast when he spotted a soldier that looked familiar. ``I don't know why I put it like I did, but I said, 'Would you know any of the McFarlands from Madrid?''' Gildea said. ``He just sat there and stared at me. He said, `I am one.''' The chance encounter overseas with a fellow Boone County native was interesting--almost as interesting as Gildea's next assignment. He had been in southern New Guinea for only two weeks when he was put on guard duty . . . keeping watch over interesting cargo. ``We'd been there probably about two weeks and some ships come in, and they assigned us to guard this one ship,'' he said. ``When we got down there it was loaded with beer. A whole ship loaded with beer. Well, [Gen. Douglas] McArthur wouldn't let them have it, so they assigned us as duty to guard that beer to make sure it stayed there.'' For six weeks, the beer sat in the ship. It wasn't until a few soldiers figured out how to break open a port window and throw some of the beer into the ocean to scoop up later that any of it could be consumed. Finally, the beer was released and Gildea's strange guard duty was over. Gildea moved around to several different areas, being assigned to various guard duties and police work. He remembers the climate being hot and humid, with not much for areas to escape the weather. At a staging area where soldiers prepared to enter Japan, in Leyte, Gildea found himself in the hospital with an illness. While there, soldiers from Corregidor liberated American women and children from a prison there. These former prisoners were sent to the hospital that Gildea was recovering. ``I had been there for three weeks, and I was getting to where I could get up and move around,'' he said. ``They come in one morning and wanted to know if some of us boys could get up and help the women and children with their stuff. They were putting them through their interrogation. I went up to this lady and little girl and spoke to her and said I'd be glad to help her. We got to visiting, and the little girls' folks were from Boxholm, Iowa. Her mother had died in prison, and her dad was some place out in the jungles. ``This lady . . . I can't remember where this lady was from . . . this lady brought the girl back to Boone,'' Gildea said. ``They were in Boone and called my folks and went up and talked to them.'' The dropping of the atomic bombs brought about the end of the war, and with it great relief from many soldiers. Gildea had already been training to go to Japan. He was a part of three platoons in the company--one dealing with traffic control, one with prisoners and one general guard duty. While being given their duties, one that struck the soldiers was tagging bodies. ``That's how bad they were figuring it was going to be,'' he said. Gildea was 3/4 of a mile away from the U.S.S. Missouri while the peace treaty signing was being done. ``We could see it through good field glasses,'' he said. ``You could see people moving around. We could say we've seen it, I guess.'' Following the end of the war, Gildea was sent to Yokohama, where he stayed in the third floor of a large building. Everything in the area had been fire bombed, however this building had been spared. He also recalled one other building in the area that was still standing. ``There was a little Methodist church,'' he said. ``It was made of brick, and it never burned.'' It was while staying in this building that he made a trade with a Japanese man that was moving out of the building. He had several postcards of the building on his desk, which Gildea asked for, and the man agreed. He then asked Gildea for some chocolate from his rations . . . he had a little boy who had never tasted chocolate. Gildea obliged. ``He had a little boy who was seven years old and never tasted chocolate,'' he said. ``It was kind of amazing to think that he wanted that candy.'' Gildea's time overseas was varied. His recollections vary from the odd to touching to humorous. He enjoyed his time overseas, however quickly reminds folks that at the time, it was not much of a choice. Whether being drafted or not, for most men at the time, serving their country was something they did without much thought. ``We had no other choice,'' he said. ``It's just our duty and we had to do it.'' I commend Harold Gildea for his many years of loyalty and service to our great nation. It is an immense honor to represent him in the United States Congress, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge my colleagues to support H.R. 3787, which I joined my colleague the gentleman from Minnesota in introducing. Our military increasingly depends on the National Guard and Reserve to keep our country safe. Men and women who served our country faithfully for decades deserve full recognition as veterans, even if they were never deployed. The legislation would extend full veteran status under federal law to retired members of the Guard and Reserve. Current law does not consider Guard and Reserve members to be veterans unless they were deployed for more than 30 days. The policy excludes many soldiers in the Guard and Reserve who, while never deployed for long periods of time, carried out critical support roles during times of war and peace, engaged in frequent and often dangerous training exercises, and stood ready to risk their lives to protect our nation during military careers that spanned decades. This legislation recognizes the service and sacrifice of National Guard and Reserve retirees and grants them the full honor of being called veterans that they have earned. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, which is a matter of honor and fairness to our citizen soldiers.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Elizabeth Lorentzen of Decorah, Iowa as the recipient of the Art Educators of Iowa (AEI) 2010 Outstanding High School Art Educator award for her dedication to her students and art. She will receive the award on October 2, 2010 at the AEI conference in Sioux City, Iowa. Elizabeth is currently an art teacher at Decorah High School and has been teaching art for 39 years. In addition to high school art, she has taught art education classes at Luther College and drawing classes through Decorah/Northeast Iowa Community College's Continuing Education Program. Over the years, Elizabeth has maintained deep relationships with her students by taking interest in their successes and challenges. She is known to use her lunch break to help students who are having difficulties in completing a project. It is because of Elizabeth's passion that many of her students have chosen to pursue a career in art or art education. Elizabeth has received the Luther College Partners grant eight times, was the 2008 Decorah Walmart Teacher of the Year, and she is the winner of two McElroy grants. Two of her students have won the Fourth Congressional District art competition and had their work hung in the U.S. Capitol for a year. Elizabeth Lorentzen is an incredible teacher, and her dedication to her profession and to her students should make every Iowan proud. It's an honor to represent her and the people of the Decorah Community School District in the United States Congress, and I know that my colleagues in the House join me in congratulating Elizabeth on this well-deserved award and thanking her for her dedicated service to her community and America's youth.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize and congratulate Jerry Stevenson of Charles City, Iowa, who recently was awarded the Pilgrim Degree of Merit by the Loyal Order of Moose. Jerry Stevenson, who was a member of the order for 36 years, was inducted into the Pilgrim Degree of Merit for services above and beyond the call duty to the Charles City Moose Lodge and to the Loyal Order of Moose as a whole. Jerry is now among an elite group of about 3,000 members who have earned the Pilgrim Degree of Merit--the highest honor that can be given by the organization--and the coveted gold jacket that comes with it. The Loyal Order of Moose is a fraternal and service organization founded in 1888, with nearly 800,000 men in roughly 1,800 Lodges, in all 50 states and four Canadian provinces, plus Great Britain and Bermuda. The Loyal Order of Moose, along with other units of Moose International, supports the operation of Mooseheart Child City & School, a 1,000-acre community for children and teens in need, located 40 miles west of Chicago; and Moosehaven, a 70-acre retirement community for its members near Jacksonville, FL. Additionally, Moose Lodges conduct approximately $50 million worth of community service annually, both through monetary donations and volunteer hours worked. I am honored to represent Jerry Stevenson in the United States Congress. I know that my colleagues join me in congratulating Jerry and wishing him continued success.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize the retirement of Major General Raymond L. Webster, Assistant to the Surgeon General of the Iowa Air National Guard and to express my appreciation for his dedication and commitment to his state and country. Major General Raymond L. Webster earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from Saint Louis University in 1974, followed later by a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Missouri in 1978, a Master of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1983, and attended Air War College through correspondence in 2001. In 1974, General Webster's long and distinguished career in America's armed forces began when he was commissioned as a Health Professions Scholarship Student at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine. He served on active duty in the Air Force from 1979-1986 as a squadron flight surgeon, resident in aerospace medicine, and chief of aeromedical services. In 1986, he joined the Iowa Air National Guard as a physician/flight surgeon and in 1993 became the 132nd Medical Squadron Commander. In 2001, General Webster became the first Air National Guard Medical Assistant to the Air Force's Space Command. Prior to this, he served as the Air National Guard Assistant to the Air Combat Command Surgeon General. For the past 36 years, General Webster has served faithfully and honorably, earning a long list of military awards and decorations. Most recently, he will be receiving the Distinguished Service Medal from the President of the United States, as authorized by Congress. General Webster's long-standing commitment to the Iowa Air National Guard and his country has earned him the respect and honor of all who have served with him. For this I offer him my utmost congratulations and thanks. I commend Major General Raymond L. Webster for his many years of loyalty and service to our great nation. It is an immense honor to represent General Webster in the United States Congress, and I wish him a happy retirement from the Iowa Air National Guard and all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor a great achievement by Patricia Yungclas of Webster City, Iowa. Patricia was named an Iowa Master Farm Homemaker by Wallaces Farmer magazine. She was joined by three other farm homemakers who were recognized during a ceremony in Des Moines on September 10, 2010. Since 1940, Wallaces Farmer has been a sponsor of the Iowa Master Farm Homemaker Award. The honor recognizes these women for their fine work with their families, homes and community service. The example set by Patricia demonstrates the rewards of hard work, dedication and community service. Her triumph is an honor that we all can admire and be proud of. I am honored to represent Patricia Yungclas in the United States Congress. I know that my colleagues join me in congratulating Patricia and wishing her continued success.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize Jeremy Jacobsen, a U.S. Marine veteran from Boone, Iowa, and to express my appreciation for his dedication and commitment to his country. The Boone News Republican is currently running a series of articles that honors one Boone County veteran every Tuesday from Memorial Day to Veterans Day. Jeremy Jacobsen was recognized on Tuesday, September 21. Below is the article in its entirety. I commend Jeremy Jacobsen for his many years of loyalty and service to our great nation. It is an immense honor to represent him in the United States Congress, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.-- [From the Boone News Republican, Sept. 21, 2010] Service (By Greg Eckstrom) The term is used frequently, most often when referring to what our soldiers are doing overseas--they're serving. While used frequently, however, many often don't devote a great deal of thought to why the word is used. It's used to describe our soldiers, without thought of the significance of the word. Boone resident and Marine Corps veteran Jeremy Jacobsen, however, embodies this term. He didn't join the military for an enrollment bonus, for college money or because of family tradition--in fact, his grandfather was his only direct relative at the time that had joined the service. For Jacobsen, it was something he wanted to do . . . he wanted to make a difference. He wanted to serve. ``It was one of those things I always knew I wanted to do,'' he said. ``It had nothing to do with family. I just . . . I just knew. I always knew I was going to be in the military, probably since I was about 12 years old. I knew that was what I was going to do.'' This decision did not come easily, however, for the Atkins, Iowa kid as he fought tooth and nail to enlist early at age 17. His parents and relatives all urged him not to do it, but they could see his determination, and finally his mother signed off on it, allowing him to enlist. ``Me and my best friend in high school, we were pretty politically active in high school, and with that came a deep desire to do something for our country,'' he said. ``We both loved our country. He would have enlisted with me, but he had a heart murmur. So he couldn't. So I just kind of did it for the both of us.'' Jacobsen graduated high school in 2001, and the next day he went to boot camp. He graduated from boot camp on Aug. 24, 2001--less than a month before the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack. ``Pretty much my Marine Corps career was the start of Sept. 11,'' he said. ``It was kind of a shock.'' Many of the recruiters had told soldiers that were signing up that they would likely never see war. Jacobsen was in the field, training with other soldiers, when the attacks happened, and with no outside communication available to them, they heard only through their superiors. The news was hardly believable. ``Our sergeants told us what had happened, and we thought they were lying,'' he said. ``We thought it was just a way to make us take our training more seriously. And then they caught on to that, so they let us listen to President Bush's address to the nation, and that's when we were pretty much all in shock. It was just silence. From there, I think we became more serious at that point, because we realized . . . since we were newly enlisted, at some point in time, every single one of us was going to see war.'' Jacobsen became a field radio operator, joined the Waterloo Unit--Charlie Battery 114. He spent four years with the unit until being activated on June 12, 2005--a date that was memorable, because it was his daughter's first birthday. After training in California, Jacobsen went to Iraq in September of 2005. He was an Operations Non-commissioned officer, with his job being to process Iraqi prisoners that were brought in. They worked with officials in the country to begin collecting information on prisoners--fingerprints, names and evidence involved. Being in a position where he would have initial contact with the prisoners, many thought Jacobsen had the power to decide what happened. In their experience, they thought that Jacobsen would be the one pondering their fate--a jarring experience for the Marine. ``They thought that was it or I had the power to decide their fate, and they'd fall to the ground crying,'' he said. ``Pleading for their life or trying to kiss me. I had a lot of empathy for them.'' Working through an interpreter, Jacobsen helped process the prisoners--many of whom were ``good guys,'' just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and were immediately released after processing. The prisoners, he said, were grateful to have the soldiers there. ``In the Iraqi government, they didn't feel like they had any future,'' Jacobsen said. ``They could be killed at any time. If they were arrested, they were either imprisoned for the rest of their life or killed. There was no system of justice. And so, they were happy we were there.'' Being in a position where the prisoners even had a thought that he might take their lives shook Jacobsen to his core. ``I found myself early on brought to tears for them several times,'' he said. ``Take everything out of the equation. Take out way back when they said they had weapons of mass destruction, take out the reason of maybe there's a national interest in the future because they have oil, take out all the political stuff. Just for humanitarian reasons. Just so they can be treated like people . . . that was enough for me. And for every Marine in my unit there with me, that was enough. We felt like, everything aside, all the other political stuff aside, what we were doing and what we were seeing was good. We felt like we were doing good, and they felt like we were doing good, so that justified us.'' Jacobsen worked a shift that helped his time in Iraq fly by. He would work 24 hours straight, sleep for 20 hours, eat a meal and start the routine all over again. For this reason, a normal ``day'' for Jacobsen was in reality 48 hours. While this made time fly by, it also set him up for a jarring adjustment when he returned to the United States. He spent the remainder of his enlistment in the U.S. with a Des Moines infantry unit, ending his military service career as an E-5 . . . a sergeant. Now living in Boone with his wife and three kids, looking back at his military career, Jacobsen misses many aspects of it. ``The camaraderie that you have with that group of Marines is probably the number one thing that I still miss to this day,'' he said. ``You have that group of guys . . . we've been together already that four years I've been at the unit, we go through all this training together, we spend every single day together and we know we've got each other's backs. You know you can count on that other guy if something happens. And there's something about that that connects you.'' Being back in the United States has been difficult for Jacobsen, as it is for many veterans. The feeling of having served overseas is nearly impossible to describe, he said. It wasn't until he joined the local VFW that he found he wasn't alone. ``It's weird . . . you never quite feel like you belong here anymore,'' he said. ``You gain a different perspective, and nobody around you shares that perspective. It's different. Unless you've been there, you never quite understand it. I just joined the VFW. Went to my first meeting . . . and that was the first time I talked with people who understood that.'' When asked what advice he might give a young man or woman looking to enlist, Jacobsen said the advice he would give them would make him a bad recruiter, but it's one that he considers necessary. It's based around a simple question: why are you enlisting? ``I want to know if they're enlisting for college purposes, or for national pride purposes. I'm a firm believer it's got to be this one . . . it can't be the college purpose,'' he said. ``If it's `I'm getting this benefit along with something I want to do just because I have pride in my country and I want to serve my country,' that's the perfect reason to enlist and I would tell them you'd do good at it.'' As for the Marines Corps, Jacobsen said anybody can do it, despite your size or stature, as long as they have that pride and passion. ``It doesn't matter if you're a small guy or an overweight guy. They're going to fix you,'' he said. ``They're going to fix that in boot camp and they're going to teach you how to exercise or teach you how to eat properly. They're going to give you those tools that you didn't have. The thing about the military is they're the best run organization on the planet. They're the oldest. The military has been around since the dawn of time, and so they've got a lot of history to go off of. Our country was founded by a war. Our first organization, our first business, was the military. Everything they do is for a reason. Everything's training in the Marines Corps . . . I know it's the same way with every branch.'' Looking back on his career, the camaraderie he built with his friends, the insight he gained in speaking with Iraqis, and the work he did overseas, Jacobsen said if he could go back and do it all over again, very little would change. In fact, the only thing he would do differently, he said, is push himself more, give just a little bit more, work just a little bit harder, and make just a little bit more of a difference. ``I worked as hard as I could over there, but you always look back and think, `I could have done this much more in my time in the service,' '' Jacobsen said. ``Because it does end. I look back, and it's fond memories and you miss it, and you just wish you would have tried your hardest in everything you did.'' That, better than Webster's could define it, is the definition of ``service'' as it applies to the military. And that is how it should be seen.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize Galen Wiley, a World War II Army Air Corps veteran from Boone County, Iowa, and to express my appreciation for his dedication and commitment to his country. The Boone News Republican is currently running a series of articles that honors one Boone County veteran every Tuesday from Memorial Day to Veterans Day. Galen Wiley was recognized on Tuesday, July 27. Below is the article in its entirety: Boone County Veterans: Galen Wiley (By Alexander Hutchins) Galen Wiley, 93, nurtured a passion for flight in his time in the Army Air Corps. It would help shape the rest of his life and give him a pursuit that would eventually include an airport bearing his name. Wiley grew up on a farm near Jordan, Iowa and attended school in a building that is no longer standing. Wiley's father died when he was eleven, facilitating the family's move to Boone. Wiley has spent the rest of his life in the community. Wiley was a paperboy in his youth. He graduated from Boone High School and worked as a salesman in the J.C. Penny's and J.C. Peterson stores, where he was employed when he was inducted into the army. Wiley entered the Army Air Corp and was originally placed in mechanic school. He soon opted for an officer training program, however, and took whole-heartedly to the training. Wiley was sent to England to fly a B-17 bomber, and he flew bombing runs over France, Holland, and Germany during his time in the service. Wiley's B-17 once suffered an equipment failure while flying over Holland, but he managed to land the plane with the left landing gear jammed. It was a harrowing experience, but the crew would survive and celebrate Wiley's achievement. ``I came out okay on it,'' Wiley said with a smile. Wiley once flew a mission on which he saw the plane of a fellow Boone pilot, David Mondt. Wiley flew many of his missions with English pilots, and went into London several times during the war. ``We flew an awful lot, day after day,'' Wiley said of routine life in the Air Corps. The King of England and (at that time) Princess Elizabeth once visited the air base where Wiley was stationed. Upon returning from the war in 1946, Wiley and his wife Marian were wed. Wiley was hired as a treasurer at city hall and soon promoted to a city clerk. He also joined the National Guard, and greatly enjoyed the chance to fly again. Wiley split much of his attention between his job with the city and the airport, and drafted the original paperwork to create the airport after the war. For many years Wiley served on the airport commission, even after his retirement from city hall, until resigning on his 90th birthday. On his 91st birthday, the airport commission renamed the airport `Galen Wiley Field' in honor of Wiley's dedication to the airport through the years. He has also been presented with a display of his service medals that friends from the airport crafted for him. Wiley served in the National Guard for 31 years after the war, and was able to fly on some weekends as part of his guard duty. He still enjoys going to the airport to watch the planes take off and land, maintaining his passion for flight. Wiley's son Bill died in a car accident when he was 23, but the family has persevered. Shirley Wiley, Galen's daughter and a retired nurse, lives in Boone to this day and assisted with this article. Wiley still stays in contact with the other three surviving members of his crew. Two of his crewmates live in California and one lives in Texas. The men still call and stay in touch, and have met up for reunions in the past. I commend Galen Wiley for his many years of loyalty and service to our great nation. It is an immense honor to represent him in the United States Congress, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize John McGovern, a Vietnam War Army Ranger and Studies and Observations Group veteran from Boone County, Iowa, and to express my appreciation for his dedication and commitment to his country. The Boone News Republican is currently running a series of articles that honors one Boone County veteran every Tuesday from Memorial Day to Veterans Day. John McGovern was recognized on Tuesday, August 31. Below is the article in its entirety: Boone County Veterans: John McGovern (By Greg Eckstrom) John McGovern worries about sounding like he's bragging when he talks about his time in the military. After all, with a resume of experiences like McGovern's, it's hard to share them without this concern crossing your head. The man once briefed John Wayne. He's been part of the handful of graduates from some of the most difficult military training in the country. He's seen shrapnel come within inches of hitting him, walked through an ambush by himself and cheated death more than half a dozen times. And so he recalls these experiences in a quiet, modest voice. He's proud of his time in the military, but quickly dismisses any comments that even tread on being complimentary with a quick statement. ``I've been lucky,'' he said. ``That's all.'' Coming from a large military family, McGovern was born in Oceanside, Calif., and raised in several states around the country--Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Alaska--as his father was in the military. The decision to join the military was made by the young McGovern when he was 16 years old. ``I was ready to get out on my own,'' he said. ``I told [my father] I wanted to join, and he told me he'd sign for me. I took all my tests and everything and when I had my 17th birthday, they flew me out for Fort Carson, Colo.'' McGovern originally wanted to enter the infantry, but was given the offer to become an Army Ranger and jumped on the chance. Once in Florida, McGovern ran into two sergeants--Pierre and Lehew--who took him under their wing. ``I ran patrols with him for six months at night, and then doing my job in the daytime. Finally they said I was ready,'' he said. ``So I put in for Ranger school, passed it, and then they kept me as an instructor. Oh, it was rough. That's actually probably one of the roughest schools other than Special Forces.'' Ranger school started with 275, graduated 70, and only 57 had enough points to receive the tab. After passing Ranger school, the three went to Scuba school, then Airborne school, then Special Forces school. Around 50 people were enrolled in Special Forces school. After its completion, only McGovern, Lehew and one other person remained. ``I've been lucky,'' he said. ``I would pick out the worst man, and I'd say, `I'm going to be here longer than him.' And if he failed out, then I picked the next one. The main thing with all these hard schools . . . if you set your mind that you're going to pass it, you'll pass it. But if you have any doubts, you're going to fail.'' After training, McGovern went to the 7th Special Forces group and Lehew, the 5th. Stationed in Vietnam, at one point, McGovern's unit was having problems with ambushes, so they called up an additional force to help. Among them was Lehew. ``Naturally, I wanted to go out with him, but my team sergeant told me no,'' McGovern said. ``They wanted to keep me on the airfield with the reserve company.'' A while later, they got a radio call that the team had walked into an ambush and had one American and a couple Vietnamese wounded. McGovern asked if they wanted him to come out, but they declined, saying they were coming back in. A couple hours later, they received another radio message that another ambush had hit them, this time with casualties. McGovern asked again if they wanted him, but they declined, and asked him to call in helicopters to transport the dead and wounded. When the dead and wounded arrived back via helicopter, McGovern helped unload. Reaching up to grab a boot, he pulled and found his comrade, Lehew, was one of the dead. After helping load Lehew into the helicopter, the team sergeant ordered McGovern to round his company up and go escort the team back to camp. That was during his first tour in Vietnam, which lasted about 13\1/2\ months. Upon returning to the U.S., he became an instructor in the Special Forces course before volunteering to go back. This time, he ended up in the Studies and Observations Group, or SOG. ``The main mission for SOG was . . . you take two or three Americans and about three or four Vietnamese or Montegnards and they'd drop us off in North Vietnam, Leose or Cambodia,'' he said. ``And we'd sneak around out there and try and gather intel or call in air strikes or whatever.'' During his second tour, McGovern shared his wife's, Janet McGovern, favorite story from his service. Shortly before heading home, McGovern was asked if he wanted to run one more mission, which he readily accepted. He was told to gather a team together and that a helicopter would arrive in two hours. ``So I got a bunch of MCO's together and we got out there, and when the helicopters came in, we jumped on and took off,'' McGovern said. ``Well, the target area was clouded over so we couldn't get in, so we had to turn around and come back. They told us to be ready to go the next morning when the helicopters got there. The next day, when the helicopter arrived, a Major notified McGovern that he was taking over. He was taking out a team that was closer to the target area, so McGovern said, `OK,' and stood down. ``That afternoon at 1 o'clock, we got a radio message that they had been shot down and all of them killed,'' McGovern said. Following his service, McGovern had a chance to meet up again with many of the men he served with overseas in Las Vegas for an SOA reunion. When asked what it's like to see these guys again, after going through so much with them in the service, McGovern's response is short and to the point. ``Oh God,'' he laughed. ``Great.'' For those joining the military, McGovern heartily endorses going through jump school and entering Special Forces . . . based on one condition. ``If possible, put in for jump school and special forces. If you're single,'' he said. ``Married men do it, but we had a 95 percent divorce rate and a 100 percent re-enlistment rate.'' McGovern's loyalty to his service, and his country, is unquestionable. Would he do anything differently if he could go back? ``No.'' What's been his favorite part of his military career? ``All of it.'' Do you ever miss it? ``Oh yeah.'' He's not being evasive in the questions . . . for McGovern, the shortest answer is the most accurate one. And he absolutely means it. ``You have to really experience it to understand it,'' he said. ``Unless you're in combat, the rest of it's just like having a job here in civilian life. You've got your job to do.'' Dedication . . . it's what's required for military service, and it's what McGovern has in spades. If he was called up today, Janet McGovern summed up what the response would be. ``If they called him today and said, `Can you report tomorrow to do something?' he'd be gone,'' she said. ``And I'd have to let him go, because that's who he is. That's just what would happen. That's who he is. He loves his country more than anything.'' And that's not bragging . . . for McGovern, just like with his stories, that's just the truth. I commend John McGovern for his many years of loyalty and service to our great Nation. It is an immense honor to represent him in the United States Congress, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize Kenny Barnes, a World War II Army Air Corps veteran from Boone County, Iowa, and to express my appreciation for his dedication and commitment to his country. The Boone News Republican is currently running a series of articles that honors one Boone County veteran every Tuesday from Memorial Day to Veterans Day. Kenny Barnes was recognized on Tuesday, August 3. Below is the article in its entirety: Boone County Veterans: Kenny Barnes (By Alexander Hutchins) Joseph Kenneth ``Kenny'' Barnes, 85, was born in Boone and flew 51 missions over a period of three months. His children have kidded him, calling him `the general,' and he lives today in a house that he built 51 years ago. Barnes was born in Boone in 1925, the second son of Elmer and Nellie Barnes. In a history of Barnes' life written by his wife, Helen, he recalls ``My childhood in the depression years was like many others--we were poor, but always had food and shelter and a loving family with two sisters, Wilma and Joanne, and two brothers, Charles and Jimmy, a father who was an engineer on the railroad and a mother who took care of the family, making sure we kept clean, nourished, did our chores and all went to church on Sunday.'' Barnes had a paper route delivering the Des Moines Register, using the money to buy some of his own clothing. Barnes' father served in World War I, and during Barnes' childhood the second World War was fast approaching. When he went to collect his papers for delivery on Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1941, his circulation manager, Sam Lyon, predicted the young men would be involved in the upcoming war before it concluded as the news played out over the radio in the shop. Barnes completed his high school requirements in January of 1943 and was drafted before the graduation ceremony took place in the fall. Barnes took basic training in Salt Lake City and was placed in the Army Air Corps. With no slots open for flight school, Barnes was trained as a gunner and attended armament school. Barnes was trained to fly in a B-24 Liberator bomber, and when his crew of ten was formed and received its B-24, they christened it Paperdoll. While flying between Florida, Trinidad, Brazil, Africa and Italy, the crew crossed the equator and became members of the ``Hyper Terrestrial Order of Equator Hoppers,'' for which Barnes has retained his certificate. The crew was based in Foggia, Italy, and had to delay their landing until bombers returning from a mission had landed. ``It was a rude awakening as we taxied down the airstrip to see a plane with the nose turret shot off, and the wounded and dead airmen arranged on the ground covered in sheets. Hard sight for a 19-year-old airman to absorb,'' Barnes said in Helen's written history. Barnes' first mission was May 18, 1944, where his squadron was assigned to bomb a Romanian oil refinery. Barnes weighed only 125 pounds, and as the smallest member of the crew he was assigned to the ball turret on this and subsequent missions. Barnes would fly on four missions over the Ploesti oil refineries, as it produced a major amount of the fuel for the German military. Barnes said they were the toughest missions, as the refineries were heavily defended with ``flak so thick you could walk on it'' and enemy fighters menacing the bombers. ``I was pretty young. I'm 18 and I'm flying combat at 19,'' Barnes said. Barnes flew regularly as he was able to fit into the cramped space of the ball turret, and due to this he racked up over 50 missions. According to Helen's written history: ``On July 28, 1944, a Ploesti raid, we sent out 27 airplanes from our 756th Bomb Squadron and lost 14. My plane was badly shot up--elevators and ailerons gone and no control over the plane, just flying on automatic pilot. We all bailed out and fortunately it was over `friendly' territory. The plane was lost, but the crew all survived. The emergency parachute jump earned me entrance into `The Caterpillar Club,' awarded by Irving Air Chute Co.'' Barnes said he thanked the Lord for bringing him through his missions unscathed and he prayed for the safety of the crew. The Liberator would often have difficulty taking off due to its payload of 2,000-pound bombs. The aircraft would often skim the treetops on takeoff. It was cold in the plane due to the cruising altitude of 28,000 feet. ``More than once we came home on two engines,'' Barnes said. ``On one occasion, with the brake system disabled, chutes were attached to the fuselage and deployed to slow down the landing speed.'' Barnes' crew lost only one member, but as he was flying on a separate plane as part of a split crew, Barnes watched the other craft fall from the sky without any of the crew escaping. ``The army was good discipline, and it made a man out of me. I didn't have time to get a job or get into trouble,'' Barnes said in an interview with the BN-R. Barnes said he has thought of the toll of the war he fought in, as well as the wars of today, and how war has never stopped being a tragedy. Barnes received a Good Conduct medal, and Air medal with two clusters, and Army Air Force Pres. Unit with gold frame and two clusters, an Army Air medal with two clusters and a European Air Force MidEast medal with six Bronze Stars. Upon completing 51 missions on August 7, 1944, Barnes was scheduled to return to the U.S. for reassignment. After a two-week voyage back to the U.S. by a Navy ship, Barnes was moved about the country for about a year teaching mostly Aircraft Recognition. He was honorably discharged on September 10, 1945 and returned to Boone. Barnes enlisted in the National Guard upon returning home, and his military career ended with a medical discharge due to allergies three years later. Barnes used the GI Bill to study pre-engineering at Boone Junior College. He received his degree in 1948 and was recruited by Iowa Electric Power Co. where he worked as an electrician and meter man until his retirement in 1984. Barnes has always been interested in technology and repaired television sets in his home from 1967 until the present. Barnes will be aboard the Honor Flight to Washington D.C. on August 19. I commend Kenny Barnes for his many years of loyalty and service to our great nation. It is an immense honor to represent him in the United States Congress, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize Joseph Calderon, a Navy and Army veteran from Boone County, Iowa, and to express my appreciation for his dedication and commitment to his country. The Boone News Republican is currently running a series of articles that honors one Boone County veteran every Tuesday from Memorial Day to Veterans Day. Joseph Calderon was recognized on Tuesday, August 17. Below is the article in its entirety: Boone County Veterans: Joseph Calderon (By Alexander Hutchins) Joseph Calderon, 75, was drafted into the Army in 1959. It was a requirement for his naturalized citizenship, and he feels proud of both his native and adoptive countries to this day. Calderon grew up in a poor, but educated, family in La Paz, Bolivia, the highest national capital in the western hemisphere. His father always stressed the value of education, and a lifetime of hard work helped Calderon earn entry into a La Paz university to study medicine. At the time of his studies, political instability gripped the nation. The government frequently shut down the university where Calderon studied, as the school was the source of much of the insurrection against those in power. Frequent interruptions to instruction influenced many medical students at the university to leave. ``Most of my classmates decided to go to other parts of the world,'' Calderon said. ``Some of them went to Argentina, many went to Brazil, a lot of them went to Europe, to Spain. And I, since I was so interested in and reading so much about the U.S., decided to come to the U.S. My father thought that it was a crazy idea, because he asked me ``who do you know up there?' '' Being 22 and adventurous was his impetus. ``Ever since I was a child, for as long as I remember, I always wanted to be a doctor just to help people,'' Calderon said. ``There was nothing else that interested me more than to wear my white coat some day and taking care of patients.'' He applied to immigrate to the U.S. and moved to Nebraska. Calderon was drafted into the Army in 1959 after working in a mental institution in Hastings, Nebraska. While in the Army, Calderon worked in a hospital as a medic and was stationed in bases around the nation. ``The irony of my life is that, even though I had no idea that I was going to he drafted into the Army, the moment I put on that uniform I felt so proud because 1 used to see in movies in my hometown John Wayne and other actors wearing their uniform, and I'd dream that I'd get to wear a uniform some day in my lift,'' Calderon said. Having recently immigrated, his English was very limited. Calderon said he followed the example of the men around him at first, and with attention and practice he became much more proficient in English. He met a good friend, Jerry Butler, in 1959. The men struck up a friendship, and Butler mentioned he was from Eldora, Iowa, before the men were deployed. Butler went to Korea and Calderon went to Fort Gordon in Augusta, Ga. They would be separated for some time, though not indefinitely. After serving as a medic in Ft. Gordon, Calderon was discharged from the Army and worked to complete the medical studies he had begun in Bolivia. He returned to Omaha after being discharged and worked as an orderly and then a surgical technician. Due to financial issues and age limits, Calderon was not able to attend medical school in the U.S. He applied to a medical school in Mexico, was accepted and applied for his license to practice medicine upon graduating five years later. Calderon completed post-graduate training in Canada and returned thereafter to work in Saint Joseph's hospital in Omaha. In 1979, 20 years after first joining the Army, Calderon enlisted in the Navy. ``That was very, very, very rewarding,'' Calderon said of his 20 years in the Navy. He had seen a billboard advertising the Navy as an adventure in Omaha, and after researching the service, Calderon decided the Navy fit his life goals. The recruiter was impressed with Calderon and appreciated his medical training, thus Calderon was soon shipped to the Naval hospital in Camp Pendleton. He served several tours at Pendleton, staying with the Marines each time thanks to the requests of the Marines themselves. ``I worked with the Marines for 15 years,'' Calderon said. Eventually Calderon would be reassigned, and he traveled the world for a time, as well as directing a number of Navy clinics. ``I also had the privilege to participate in Desert Storm when Iraq invaded Kuwait. So I was the main medical planner for one of the large units on the east coast in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, which was a Marine Corps base,'' Calderon said. He also provided humanitarian aid in Central America and received mandatory retirement from the Navy in 1999 at the rank of Captain. ``In essence, I had a wonderful time with the Navy. I enjoyed every day of my life working in the Navy,'' Calderon said. ``I didn't want to retire because I was still active, healthy and very well liked.'' Unfortunately he would have to retire, but it would open a new chapter of his life. Calderon would leave the medical world after his tour in the Navy, leaving a field that has become very complex and burdened with paperwork. He and Mary Kay, his wife, moved back to Mary Kay's hometown of Boone. ``I always tell people that I have so many projects, I have no time to be busy,'' Calderon said happily. He paints pictures, many on subjects pertinent to his home country. He reads non-fiction, collects stamps and international currency and he and Mary Kay travel frequently to Europe, Ireland, and next year they hope to travel to Bolivia. Calderon is also a member of the American Legion and the Marine Corps League. Calderon retired to Iowa, much to the surprise of his colleagues. Both his sons, David and Roberto, live in California, but Calderon retired to Iowa because of the people. He said he has never felt at a disadvantage in the U.S. because he endeavors to act with respect and intelligence. ``I want to show and I want to tell people that immigrate from a different country that once they come into this country, they need to dedicate their lives to the county that has given them tutelage, so to speak, or the ability to be successful,'' Calderon said. He feels strongly that the work and service he has given to the United States is the reason he has been rewarded with success and kindness. ``1 still care for Bolivia, but Bolivia hasn't given me anything. The United States has helped me, and I have given back to my country. I'm proud to fly a U.S. flag at my house, and mainly to respect the laws of this country,'' Calderon said. Calderon still follows some of the traditions and ideas of his native country, but he strives to act as an American in public. He also presents a booth about the culture and history of Bolivia at cultural fairs in Iowa. Calderon said the legal process for immigration may be strict, but it is the law and it should be followed and respected. Federal laws on immigration should be enforced to ensure that people entering the country can contribute to society, he said. ``The demands are difficult and numerous to get into this country, but while it takes work, it can be done, and it's the way I and others have come here,'' Calderon said. Calderon recently contacted Jerry Butler, his friend from the Army in 1959. Calderon and Butler met on Butler's farm in Eldora. The two men had a reunion, and after all the years and miles apart their friendship showed to be just as strong as it was fifty years ago. I commend Joseph Calderon for his many years of loyalty and service to our great nation. It is an immense honor to represent him in the United States Congress, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize Phil Golding, a World War II Army veteran from Boone County, Iowa, and to express my appreciation for his dedication and commitment to his country. The Boone News Republican is currently running a series of articles that honors one Boone County veteran every Tuesday from Memorial Day to Veterans Day. Phil Golding was recognized on Tuesday, August 24. Below is the article in its entirety: Boone County Veterans: Phil Golding (By Alexander Hutchins) Not all military experiences are life-changing tales, fraught with peril and excitement. For former Boone County resident Phil Golding, his experiences in the military were rather mundane. He was never shot at, ``to my knowledge,'' he said. He never received, nor wanted, a Purple Heart. A Boone resident for nearly 50 years, Golding, however, recalls his times in the United States Army with fond memories, with his three most volatile army jobs being battery clerk, gas truck driver and ammo truck driver. Golding was inducted into the U.S. Army at Camp Dodge from Glidden, Iowa, in Carroll County, assigned to active duty on July 3, 1943, ``policing the camp grounds for cigarette butts'' prior to the crowds of visitors swarming into the area. ``I was given a G.I. haircut, clothes and equipment, then sent to a tank destroyer facility at Camp Hood, Texas, for four months of infantry basic training before spending 4\1/2\ months on campus at the University of Illinois in the Army Specialized Training Program ostensibly to be an engineer,'' Golding recalled. ``This changed when the war in Africa, Italy and Europe called for fresh blood.'' Golding, along with hundreds of other ``non-essentials,'' as he referred to himself, were transported by troop train to the Eighth Armored Division at Camp Polk, La. Before long, they would be replacing armored units in combat zones, but first there were inspections. ``We spent the hot summer of 1944 being inspected to death before the Germans got a shot at us,'' Golding said. ``We boarded a troop ship in early fall. Somewhere, mid-Atlantic, a couple hundred of us below deck playing cards, writing home or reading, when something big banged hard against the bulkhead only a few feet away! We never knew what, but one officer didn't wait to panic, he went bananas, bounding up the stairway shouting, `Don't panic . . . let me outta here! Let me outta here!' '' It was a couple months later when the group ate their Thanksgiving turkey in what Golding referred to as ``Jolly ol' England.'' After next celebrating Christmas with an English family, they finally received their equipment on New Years Day: tanks, trucks, 105 mm howitzers, and more. The soldiers were rushed across the channel to Europe, but the Battle of the Bulge was over by then, so the troops were held behind the front lines, in reserve, freezing in France for six long, cold weeks. Golding recalls an incident next that happened in a muddy orchard. ``We then pulled our trucks, heavy with ammo, into a pretty Dutch orchard, just before the frost left, leaving our trucks axle-deep in sod, eight-wheelers spinning, wench cables straining and shear pins shearing,'' he said. ``After the tank-retriever drug us out one by one, the poor Dutchman's grove looked like a plowed field. Even the road past his farm looked plowed, ready to plant.'' He also recalls a spectacular site during his time overseas serving in the Army. ``Watching the bombers go east, then back west, with bomb bays open and parachute cords trailing was thrilling--we knew our paratroopers were on the other side of the river, waiting for us to cross the Rhine River on a pontoon bridge,'' Golding said. ``The day after on the far side of the river was a different thrill when our captain circled our trucks on a hill, visible for miles, and we took a few German artillery rounds. Not much happened where we were, I hurried dressing and moved from the 200 rounds of steel cased white phosphorus 105 mm artillery shells in our truck, which was my bed the night before.'' The end of World War II was a strange sight for Golding. He recalls that he was near the Elbe River when he awoke to the scene. ``I got up one morning and wandered out the back side of our barracks and there was a whole battalion with rifles stacked and lining up at a chow truck for breakfast, it took me a minute to realize this was a German battalion getting fed, with rifles stacked, apparently unconcerned that they were in the backyard of a bunch of American G.I.s, who also seemed unconcerned,'' he said. ``More curious than concerned.'' And so, the war ended, and Golding returned home to Boone, happy for his military experience, and happy for his safe return, albeit with a few more entertaining stories than when he left. ``Compared to most, my experiences in the U.S. Army were mundane, thank the Lord,'' Golding said. I commend Phil Golding for his many years of loyalty and service to our great Nation. It is an immense honor to represent him in the United States Congress, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize Donald Erb, a World War II Army veteran from Boone County, Iowa, and to express my appreciation for his dedication and commitment to his country. The Boone News Republican is currently running a series of articles that honors one Boone County veteran every Tuesday from Memorial Day to Veterans Day. Donald Erb was recognized on Tuesday, September 14. Below is the article in its entirety: Boone County Veterans: Donald Erb (By Greg Eckstrom) At 84 years old, Donald Erb might be considered one of the younger veterans of World War II, but still shares many characteristics with other WWII veterans of the time. He is disciplined, modest and sees military service as many did in his time . . . as more of a duty than an option. Moving to Boone County with his family at a very young age in 1929, Erb graduated from Ogden High School and was immediately drafted into the Army as an infantry soldier in 1944. ``I graduated high school in 44 and went into the Army in 44,'' he said. ``Just as soon as I got out of high school. We went to a replacement depot and wherever they needed soldiers was where they sent you. I went to Camp Walters, Texas, for 16 weeks training and then we shipped to the Philippines.'' Erb arrived in the Philippines just as the heavy fighting in Manila was finishing up and jungle warfare was going on outside the city. A machine gunner during his time stationed there, Erb recalls his fellow soldiers as being one of the best parts about his service. ``Buddies, friends,'' he said when asked about his favorite part of service. As far as what stood out to him most in his time overseas, however, the answer was the difficulty of fighting in the jungle. ``I think jungle warfare,'' he said. ``All these supplies were brought in by water buffalo. Any injuries or anybody that was hit or killed was carried out by Filipino litter bearers. We didn't have any roads. As we took the jungle and got control of it, then bulldozers made roads.'' As roads were bulldozed into the jungles, tanks were brought in to clean out the caves. ``They bulldozed a major road there and brought tanks in with flamethrowers and cleaned out the caves and stuff in there by using flamethrower tanks,'' he said. Erb also recalls the final days of World War II, when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Like many WWII veterans, he saw the bombs, and the resulting end of the war, as a Godsend. ``The atomic bomb, I would say, saved my life,'' he said. ``Because every man, woman and child would have been armed in Japan. It probably saved the lives of a lot of people even though it killed a lot of people at the time. Every man, woman and child would have been fighting you otherwise. It would have been a bloodbath on both sides.'' He also recalls the attitude among the soldiers upon receiving the news that the war had ended. ``The boozers, they went out and got drunk,'' he said. ``But most of the soldiers just thanked God that it was over. Everybody was glad it was over.'' Erb kept in contact with several of his fellow soldiers from the war, now good friends although their numbers have dwindled. ``I've got a buddy that was one day older than I am and lived in Eugene, Oregon,'' he said. ``I've kept in contact with about 7 or 8 guys, but I think there's only three of us left. I was on the tail end of the war, and I'm 84, so these other guys are getting up in the 90s. This flight that we took up to Washington, D.C., one guy was celebrating his 94th birthday that day.'' The flight Erb took, the Honor Flight, brought veterans to Washington D.C. where they had a chance to visit monuments, including the WWII memorial. ``It was a long day, but it was wonderful,'' he said. ``We all had gold shirts on and these black hats. And when they dumped you out at the memorial, you had 305 guys out there with the gold shirts, and it was really kind of fascinating.'' Being with other veterans, and seeing the World War II memorial, Erb said was a great experience. In his view, the war was difficult, but necessary. ``When you have to protect our country. . . World War II, we didn't have a whole lot of choice,'' he said. ``We had both ends of the world moving in on us.'' I commend Donald Erb for his many years of loyalty and service to our great Nation. It is an immense honor to represent him in the United States Congress, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize Keith Pfrimmer, a Navy veteran from Boone County, Iowa, and to express my appreciation for his dedication and commitment to his country. The Boone News Republican is currently running a series of articles that honors one Boone County veteran every Tuesday from Memorial Day to Veterans Day. Keith Pfrimmer was recognized on Tuesday, August 10. Below is the article in its entirety: Boone County Veterans: Keith Pfrimmer (By Alexander Hutchins) Keith Pfrimmer, 79, served as a radar technician on the USS Frontier from July 1951 to July 1955. Over the course of four years, he would travel to Japan, the seas of Asia, the West Coast and Japan. The Frontier was a destroyer tender, providing support to the 7th fleet. Pfrimmer was assigned to the ship and sailed with it after it had been recommissioned. He served in O Division, or the Operations Division. ``When we were under way I'd stand radar watches, which helped a great deal in the maneuvers of the ship,'' Pfrimmer said. ``The ship didn't see any action. It wasn't that kind of ship.'' Pfrimmer's brother had served in the Navy in World War II, and had helped Pfrimmer decide on the Navy as his service. The ship carried a two-star admiral and would occasionally dock chained up to Destroyers in the fleet to service and resupply them. ``It [the ship] wasn't in a danger zone, other than we were in Korean waters,'' Pfrimmer said. ``If we went into dry dock, we had to completely unload all ammo and that type of thing. When we'd come out of dry dock, we'd go to the same place and reload ammo. The ammo was mostly for supplies; we wouldn't use it,'' Pfrimmer said. During the first cruise to Japan that Pfrimmer served, the Frontier had to veer out to sea to avoid a typhoon. The anchor had to he severed in the storm and the ship returned to California and the state of Washington for repairs. ``We were in Korean waters when we went to Kobe, Japan,'' Pfrimmer said. The Frontier serviced 146 ships on its third cruise and held an open house to the public in 1954 back in the U.S. Servicing ships and providing repairs for Destroyers that sailed in Korean waters during the war was the most common task on board. Pfrimmer said his experiences in the Navy made him more punctual and gave him a better sense of responsibility. ``I chose the Navy and I got to do just what I wanted to do when I joined. I got to see a lot of places,'' Pfrimmer said. ``It was a good experience, though I was away from home.'' He said he also appreciates the benefits he gets through the VA. ``I've got a lot of respect for the Navy,'' Pfrimmer said. ``I think the technology is a lot different now. I bet I wouldn't even recognize radar today.'' He is still interested in the Navy and researches naval history. I commend Keith Pfrimmer for his many years of loyalty and service to our great nation. It is an immense honor to represent him in the United States Congress, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize Kenneth Walter, a World War II Navy veteran from Boone County, Iowa, and to express my appreciation for his dedication and commitment to his country. The Boone News Republican is currently running a series of articles that honors one Boone County veteran every Tuesday from Memorial Day to Veterans Day. Kenneth Walter was recognized on Tuesday, September 7. Below is the article in its entirety: Boone County Veterans: Kenneth Walter (By Greg Eckstrom) History is best learned from experience. Living through it, feeling it and seeing it from your own eyes. As a former American history teacher, Kenneth Walter, who has lived in Boone for 50 years now and is a retired United administrator, would likely be the best teacher you can find for World War II history from the Pacific. Learning about Kamikaze pilots? Walter's boat was hit by one. The flag raising on Mount Suribachi during the battle of Iwo Jima? They came to Walter's boat first looking for a spare flag, and ended up getting the one from the boat next to him. Walter's experiences brought him through some historic moments in World War II, but as far as sharing this in his classrooms after returning to the United States, he stuck to teaching rather than sharing stories. ``In my years of teaching I don't ever recall an instance of recounting the fact that I was in the service,'' he said. ``Everybody had been in the service. You did it and never gave it too much thought.'' Born in Keokuk, Walter graduated high school in Cincinnati, Ohio, before enlisting into the service. ``What choice was there for a young man, 16 or 17?'' he recalled of signing up for the Navy. ``You got in just as quick as you could . . . at least I did.'' And once he was in, Walter took pleasure in the little things . . . the basic things. ``On most every occasion I had a bed. On most every occasion, somebody else prepared my meal,'' he said with a laugh. ``And beyond that, I had a great job in the Navy. I was a quartermaster, which is not a quartermaster in the Army. A quartermaster in the Navy is the master of the quarter deck, which is the bridge. Quartermasters were in charge of navigation. As a quartermaster, you had to be able to do the same things a radio man did, the same things a signal man did. I also got qualified as a radar man. We had to do all sorts of things. We supervised the other enlisted staff on the bridge. But of course, we were always managed by officers. Navigation and communication were primary responsibilities.'' Walter found himself aboard a Tank Landing Ship, the LST- 477, a long ship--about 325 feet--used to carry massive amounts of cargo. ``We went to Guam and did landings there, landings at Gilbert Islands. Our major action was in Iwo [Jima] when we got into the action big time,'' he said. ``We had a kamikaze hit us. That's when I lost my place to sleep.'' At the time, Walter's ship was carrying 25 tanks that were to be discharged on the first day of the Battle of Iwo Jima-- a very heavy load. ``We were struck maybe 75 feet back from the bow,'' he said. ``It was carrying a bomb in addition to itself as a missile, and it penetrated the side and we went down on our nose. We couldn't get in because of our bow being low. So we had to wait two days. Finally, on the fourth day, we made it in.'' Another vivid memory for Walter was the flag raising at Mount Suribachi. ``We were one of the ships they came to looking for a flag to put up on Mount Sirabachi on Iwo, and the ship next to us had a flag extra, and we didn't happen to,'' he said. ``But we did get to see the event from our ship. We blew our horns and everything like that. The Marines let us know what they'd done, because we had Marines who were unloading tanks at that particular time.'' Walter also recalled the final day of World War II. His ship had been remodeled to be a hospital ship for the invasion of Japan. ``We had doctors and nurses aboard,'' he said. ``They put a couple operating rooms down where we usually carry tanks. So we were not unhappy to see the war be over. We were amongst those that were pleased that the atom bombs stopped the war. We knew what was going to happen to us.'' After the war ended, Walter traveled to Korea with a construction battalion, and then back to Japan. His boat had been decommissioned, and he found himself as part of the group giving his boat to those they had previously been fighting. ``It was an odd feeling,'' he said. ``There's nothing in any history book about the United States helping the Japanese in that kind of way. I think it's one of those typical things Americans do . . . give the beaten people a better chance to get by. And what happened to our ship, it was turned over to some Japanese fishermen. We gave them about two days worth of training on how to run the ship and gave it to them. On March 13, 1946, we did that. That's when I started my long trek home. I got out in July of 1946. I took a ship, another ship, back home.'' After his service, Walter moved to Illinois, then Boone, where he has lived for the past 50 years. He most recently went on the Honor Flight to Washington, DC. Although he had been there several times in the past, it was the first time he had seen the World War II Memorial. ``That's spectacular,'' he said. ``It really is.'' When recalling the history he's lived through, Walter doesn't give the highlights typically heard of service men and women of their travels. ``Yeah, I went to Japan and Korea and Australia and so on,'' he said. ``But it's not like being a tourist. You're not a tourist. There are a lot of places I was where I never stepped foot on the ground. You were just . . . it's like flying over Iowa.'' For Walter, he recalls the friendships that were formed with those aboard his ship. Since World War II, they have held reunions, and he has had friends from the service visit him in Boone. ``Lasting friendship,'' he said. ``Not deep friendship, just lasting. The service experience is something altogether different. There isn't anything to explain it.'' I commend Kenneth Walter for his many years of loyalty and service to our great nation. It is an immense honor to represent him in the United States Congress, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize Louis Wolfgram, a Vietnam War Army and National Guard veteran from Boone County, Iowa, and to express my appreciation for his dedication and commitment to his country. The Boone News Republican is currently running a series of articles that honors one Boone County veteran every Tuesday from Memorial Day to Veterans Day. Louis Wolfgram was recognized on Tuesday, June 22. Below is the article in its entirety: Boone County Veterans: Louis Wolfgram (By Alexander Hutchins) Louis Wolfgram, 60, Command Sergeant Major (retired) of the Iowa National Guard, has recently returned to State Active duty on Retiree Recall after retiring on his 60th birthday June ninth. Wolfgram was born in Sumner, Iowa to a family with nine children. His father had served in the Army Air Corps in World War II, but Wolfgram was the only child out of his eight siblings that served in the military. Wolfgram's father owned a grocery store in Sumner. ``He saw the writing on the wall that the small-town grocery was going to disappear and went into insurance,'' Wolfgram said. The family moved to Jefferson, Iowa and then Boone. In 1968 Wolfgram graduated Ryan High School. One year later, in 1969, he was drafted. On January 28 of 1970 Wolfgram went on Active Duty and proceeded to receive training in accounting and stock control after a stint in Fort Des Moines, Fort Lewis and Fort Lee. After being trained to do both manual and mechanical accounting (using computers he described as half the size of a table) he received two weeks leave and then deployed to Vietnam. Wolfgram received his choice of specialty in the Army, but in exchange for his preference in duty he made a three-year commitment to the Army rather than the standard two. Wolfgram served for 18 months in Vietnam at a large supply post in a rear area of Vietnam. ``I was a logistician,'' he said. ``We pulled perimeter guard and did sweeps in the morning. I wasn't out beating the bush like the infantry guys were.'' When he returned from two years in Vietnam, Wolfgram was offered the option of serving a year at Fort Hood, a year in Germany or leaving the Army a year early. Wolfgram took the option to leave the service, but says now he regrets not joining the National Guard immediately after leaving the Army. ``I was out for about five years,'' Wolfgram said, and during this time he worked for John Deere. In October of 1977 he joined the National Guard, where he is still serving after his retirement. Wolfgram said some of his fondest experiences are his travels throughout the U.S. and to Norway, Japan and Korea. He has been working full-time in the National Guard since 1986. ``The floods of '93 were a real, major event, just with all the manpower the guard put out there and the situations that we put our soldiers in that could have been catastrophic,'' Wolfgram said. He served as the Task Force Command Sergeant Major for the National Guard in Des Moines at the time of the flood and was impressed by how lucky the soldiers were in all the dangerous work they did fighting the flood. Wolfgram said he was especially proud of the work he did with the Iowa Military Academy and the opportunities he has received through the academy to train younger soldiers in leadership roles. Wolfgram served two years as the Enlisted Senior Instructor for the Academy. ``That was a fruitful time in my career,'' he said. Wolfgram was also assigned for 14 years in the Boone Army National Guard base as a supply and food service administrator. ``You see a lot of happy faces when guys get good chow,'' he said with a laugh. Before his retirement, Wolfgram was serving as an enlisted advisor to the Judge Adjutant General of the Iowa Guard, advising the commander of the Iowa Guard on meeting the needs of the soldiers. In 1990 Wolfgram earned his degree in business and accounting, partly due to the credits he earned while serving in the Guard. He said he appreciated his education and all the opportunities he received to work with his leadership skills. ``One thing I regret is not joining the guard immediately after leaving active duty, and the other is that I didn't get to deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan,'' he said. ``Some people would say `You're nuts for wanting to do that,' but it's part of what you swore in for and signed up for.'' He said it is important to remember that many soldiers do not deploy, and he is always impressed working with combat veterans of previous eras. For the past ten years Wolfgram has worked on the military funerals honor team, work that has given him tremendous respect for the men and women who deploy overseas. Wolfgram was most impressed with how well prepared and supported the soldiers of today are, something he is acutely aware of after his time in Vietnam. He and his wife currently care for two of their grandchildren, and he said he will enjoy taking them out boating this summer, as well as finally being able to grow a beard. I commend Louis Wolfgram for his many years of loyalty and service to our great Nation. It is an immense honor to represent him in the United States Congress, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize John Miles, a Korean War Army Veteran from Boone County, Iowa, and to express my appreciation for his dedication and commitment to his country. The Boone News Republican is currently running a series of articles that honors one Boone County veteran every Tuesday from Memorial Day to Veterans Day. John Miles was recognized on Tuesday, June 15. Below is the article in its entirety: [From The Boone News Republican, June 15, 2010] Boone County Veterans: John Miles (By Alexander Hutchins) ``That was a cold place over there. Cold, cold, cold,'' John Miles, 82, said of his time in the Korean War. Miles has lived in Boone his entire life and worked for 36 years as a railroad dispatcher. He graduated from Boone High School and the local junior college, and a history of participating in warfare was in his family. Miles had four older brothers, each of whom served in World War II and returned home safely. Miles joined the Army in 1950, and returned from the Korean War with a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star to eventually married and have two sons. ``The Miles'' lucked out,'' he joked. When Miles enlisted in 1950, he was trained at Fort Leonardwood, in Missouri, and was assigned to the 40th division of the 160th infantry. He became a combat medic, and routinely entered the field to tend to wounded soldiers while under fire. ``The Chinese could put artillery shells in your back pocket,'' Miles said. No matter the enemy resistance Miles tended to the wounded, and resistance varied greatly from day to day. ``When you're a medic, you go no matter what. When guys are getting shot at, that's why you're there,'' he said. Miles described living in bunkers while in Korea--large holes excavated in the earth that were lined with timber posts. Miles knew all the men he served with and said he always loved the camaraderie with his fellow soldiers. ``War is hell to be in, but it was a good experience,'' Miles said. ``I'd do it again if I had to.'' He said the thing he appreciated the most was the friendship he had with the men he served with, despite the frigid and deadly conditions. He spoke of one friend who never returned--a soldier who the army failed to find after a search and is still listed as missing. After being in the country for six months, Miles was in the field tending to two wounded soldiers when a shell exploded nearby. Miles was hit with shrapnel and wounded. He was rescued from the field by jeep and then flown by helicopter to the USS Consolation hospital ship. He stayed on the ship for six months until he was able to walk again and returned home. He was awarded his Purple Heart and Bronze Star for his service. Miles returned to Boone and the railroad. Despite the hardship of the war, Miles said he eventually returned to an ordinary life. ``When I first got home, I couldn't go to a movie because I was too jittery,'' he said of films with gunfire or war movies. Later his tension abated and he was able to pursue all his social activities. Miles is an avid fan of sports who often swam at the public pool and played tennis and baseball in an adult league at the city park. At 35, Miles married school classmate Lois Huffman, who has since passed away, and the couple had two sons, Lane and Lynn. Miles says he responds to the conflicts in the world today as anyone else probably would. ``It works out of your system,'' Miles said of the trauma he felt in the war. ``I lived a regular life when I got home. It was different for a while, but you get used to it again.'' Miles said that many veterans returning home aren't respected as they should be. He said he supports providing higher education to veterans to help them get professional jobs. ``I'm a veteran, but there are veterans who come home who aren't treated the way they should be,'' Miles said. I commend John Miles for his many years of loyalty and service to our great nation. It is an immense honor to represent him in the United States Congress, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize Chuck Lovin, a World War II Navy and Marine veteran from Boone County, Iowa, and to express my appreciation for his dedication and commitment to his country. The Boone News Republican is currently running a series of articles that honors one Boone County veteran every Tuesday from Memorial Day to Veterans Day. Chuck Lovin was recognized on Tuesday, July 6. Below is the article in its entirety: Boone County Veterans: Chuck Lovin (By Alexander Hutchins) When millions of men are mobilized for a war effort, it is easy to neglect the sheer logistical network needed. Amidst the brutality of the Pacific island invasions, there were touches of a more orderly life. At one point in the war, Charles ``Chuck'' Lovin, 90, was in a foxhole on the Marianas Islands as Navy Corpsman, providing dental care in the midst of a marine invasion. Lovin grew up on a farm, and said that in a way the life of work was good preparation for his tour in the Navy, and later the Marines. ``All we did was work, and every day we got up at 4 a.m.'' Lovin said. Despite the work, he was an avid fan of sports and played them consistently through his school career. He participated in track, basketball, tennis and just about everything except football . . . as long as his chores were completed. Lovin was a student at Upper Iowa University when World War II began, studying social studies and physical education. His goal was to be a coach and make a career out of his passion for sports. Lovin was exempt from the draft at the beginning of the war due to his status as a student, but when he reached the end of his studies, he enlisted in the Navy. After entering the Navy in August of 1942, he was trained as a dental technician before being assigned to the USS Nevada, which had been damaged in the Pearl Harbor attack but was repaired and returned to service. Lovin served for one and a half years on the Nevada, cleaning teeth and providing other dental services. ``The ship was good duty. There were so many guys on there it was like living on a city,'' he said. When the ship was briefly reassigned to the Atlantic theater, passing through the Panama Canal, the crew took on a number of American sailors who were suffering from mental disorders after traumatic tours on submarines. Some of the sailors were under enough distress that they were restrained or placed on suicide watch. ``They were calm during the day, but at night, when the moon would come out, it would get bad,'' Lovin said. He still remembers today a doctor explaining that many of the men would return to normal when they returned home, but some soldiers would suffer difficulties for their remaining years. Lovin would clean teeth for the sailors late at night on the ship as a matter of duty and didn't charge, but small donations from troops gave Lovin enough money to play poker and buy necessities. Throughout the war, Lovin saved up a portion of his pay to buy the ring he would present to his longtime girlfriend, Lorraine, before they married. The two were split by the war, but wrote to each other almost every day. Necessities of war meant that mail arrived in batches about once a month, and letters were censored. ``I faired a lot better than some guys who got Dear John letters,'' Lovin said. Lorraine still has the ring he presented her. Lovin returned to the U.S. after his tour on the ship and entered a ten-week training program with the Marine Corps to prepare him for entering the Fleet Marine Force, or FMF. ``They had a lot of fun, the Marines, taking the Navy guys and working them over for ten weeks,'' Lovin said jokingly. He was assigned to the 18th anti-aircraft battalion and paired with a doctor named Jim Holdt who would become a long- time friend. Lovin and Holdt worked closely throughout the invasion of Tinian in the Marianas Islands, initially providing care to Marines with a foot-cranked dental station that Lovin carried onto the island with his duty pack. ``My greatest impression was landing with the Marines. I had this whole pack, plus the medical [equipment] on the side, and I told the doctor `I don't think I can get over that rope ladder and down into the water.' He swore at me and said `you're going to make it, Charlie.' I made it, but the impressionable thing was all the dead bodies of the Japanese and even the Marines. You pushed them aside when you made the landing. When we got in there, by then they had a lot of the Japanese in corrals and all they wanted was the American cigarette,'' Lovin said. ``It was your job, and that was it. You just did it, and in that sense it was like growing up on a farm,'' Lovin said. ``I held sick call and treated all the trench mouth and all that.'' He treated ailments for the Marines protecting Tinian from Japanese air attacks after he came aboard the island in one of the later waves of the invasion. ``Doctor Holdt, that I was with for two years and shared the same foxhole, he would take over. . . when he would drill teeth I'd provide the power and clean the teeth at the same time,'' Lovin said. Prior to his landing Lovin was on his troop ship when the initial Marine invasion landed, and could hear the conflict as the occupation fought to take enough of the island to allow support troops to move in. He was assigned to patrol around the major smokestack of his ship while the invasion occurred, and said he was always fearful that an enemy bomber would manage to hit the ship while the invasion raged on. Lovin and Holdt slept on cots under mosquito netting on the island, and Lovin remembers clearly that Holdt slept with a .45-caliber pistol. ``I kept saying that one of these days you're going to wake up from a dream and shoot me,'' Lovin said jokingly. He worked in trenches and foxholes after initially landing, and in only a few weeks the engineering corp had built a facility that Lovin moved into for treating soldiers. He spoke of helping to unload injured Marines from hospital ships that had steamed in from Okinawa and other islands once engineers could build a hospital. Lovin said he always remembered though some of the soldiers were bandaged, injured or burned severely they all asked him for cigarettes. ``I always said they ought to pull that ship up to New York and make the American people go aboard that ship,'' Lovin said. Lovin's duties were the same on the battleship and with the invasion, but the experiences surrounding his work were vastly different. ``With the Marines there was more of an `esprit de corps,' because you all depended on the other guy,'' Lovin said. ``Long toward the end of the war I got sent back to go to officer training school at the University of Pennsylvania, but the war ended while I was home on leave.'' There was no fanfare for Lovin when the war ended. He was given his severance pay, boarded a train, and came home. Because he had earned his degree from Upper Iowa University before joining the Navy, he was hired as a sports coach in Rockford, Iowa almost immediately after the war. Lovin said the days after the war were excellent times for finding work, as there were so many jobs opening up after soldiers returned from Europe and the Pacific. He moved to Boone to coach tennis, basketball and other sports and joined a number of civic organizations such as the Lion's Club and the American Legion. ``I'd never been involved in things like that, living on a farm,'' Lovin said. He and his wife took picnics, wintered in Arizona for many years and took in the community. The Lovins eventually met Holdt, the doctor Lovin had worked with in the war, and the two couples visited each other in their respective communities. Lovin encouraged citizens today to do what they can to understand the importance of the protection the military provides. Donating care packages or sending correspondence to troops can make a big difference, he said. Much of Lovin's time is now taken by visiting numerous class reunions for all of the years he worked in the Boone schools. His legacy is displayed in the pictures of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren on a wall in his home and in the years of school classes he receives invitations for reunions from. I commend Chuck Lovin for his many years of loyalty and service to our great nation. It is an immense honor to represent him in the United States Congress, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. LATHAM

Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize David Mondt, a World War II Army Air Corps and National Guard veteran from Boone County, Iowa, and to express my appreciation for his dedication and commitment to his country. The Boone News Republican is currently running a series of articles that honors one Boone County veteran every Tuesday from Memorial Day to Veterans Day. David Mondt was recognized on Tuesday, June 29. Below is the article in its entirety: Boone County Veterans: David Mondt (By Alexander Hutchins) At 21 years of age, many kids are still wet behind the ears and trying to carve out a living for themselves. When David Mondt was 22, he was flying nighttime raids to drop paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne into the battlefields of Europe. Mondt, 87, previously a first lieutenant in the Army Air Corps during World War II, was born in Boone and has lived in the community nearly his entire life. He lived in Perry for a year in his childhood, at which time he was hit by a Hawkeye Laundry truck. No lasting injuries resulted from the accident, but Mondt soon returned to Boone and continued his education. ``The biggest thing was getting a bicycle, which I eventually did,'' Mondt said of the most significant part of his childhood. When World War II began, Mondt watched the Iowa National Guard mobilize and head to Louisiana. ``Then they started the draft, and I didn't want to wait for that, so I joined the Air Force,'' he said. Mondt began training to be an Army Air Corps mechanic when he first joined, as pilot training was only available to soldiers 21 and older. While in mechanic training, the age requirements for pilot training were lowered, and Mondt, then 18, applied and was accepted into program. He went into the pilot school in Texas, and mere days before graduating the program was scrapped and modified to the Flight Officer Program. ``In one day, November the 10th, 1942, I was a Private, a Staff Sergeant and a flight officer in a matter of hours,'' Mondt said. Mondt was eventually placed with the 62nd Troop Carrier Squadron, men with whom he would fly for the rest of the war. Every man in the squadron would return home alive at the war's conclusion. The squadron flew mostly day-to-day supply and troop transport missions. Mondt flew a C-47 Skytrain cargo plane for the entirety of the war, and said he missed a pre-D-Day appearance by General Eisenhower because he was running a load of supplies. Mondt originally flew runs in North Africa, then as part of the American invasion of Italy where he dropped paratroopers on Sicily. After the fascist collapse in Italy, Mondt was sent to England and prepared for the D-Day invasion. Mondt would drop members of the 82nd Airborne in the now-famous invasion of Europe, and in the nighttime raid the C-47s received enemy fire, but managed to deploy the paratroopers successfully. ``Everything was fine, as long as you were over England or over the water. When we hit the coast of France we started receiving fire from the Germans,'' Mondt said. One plane from the squadron was shot down, but the crew survived. Mondt's plane would return from the mission, but it was hit by anti-aircraft fire. All the windows were blown out and Mondt was hit by the shrapnel flying about the cabin. Mondt received the Purple Heart for his injury, although he would carry pieces of shrapnel in his back for years. Despite all the events conspiring around him that would become critical to world history, Mondt said that in the end the daily activities were orderly and regimented. ``Whatever they told you to do, you did,'' Mondt said. ``It was really just an everyday occurrence. When you weren't dropping paratroopers, you were hauling supplies to frontline troops.'' Mondt flew British and Polish soldiers into the Battle of Arnhem, but toward the end of the war more flights were daytime operations. Mondt said that after crossing the Rhine River, there were hardly any German air forces left. The planes had all been bombed at the airfields by the Army Air Corps. ``If you got back from the flight, you got a place to sleep, and it was warm, and [you got] good food. The ground troops ate out of mess kits. We never did,'' Mondt said. When he returned to the U.S. after his tour of duty, he was offered a chance to leave the Air Corps while in St. Louis. Mondt accepted and returned to Iowa. He didn't spend long out of an airplane, however, as he joined the Army Aviation of the National Guard upon returning to Boone. He would fly aircraft with the National Guard, including helicopter training in Texas, and would serve in the Guard until the age of 60. At one point Mondt was told the Army would be decommissioning all of its planes for helicopters, but he never heard what came of that plan. Life was normal after the war. Mondt sold insurance when he wasn't on Guard duty, and he married his wife, Yvonna. They raised four children and lived a quiet life. ``Mowing grass,'' Mondt said jokingly when asked what he did for a hobby while living in Boone. Mondt said the war had little permanent effect on him, as his outlook on life after the war was similar to his outlook on life before the conflict. ``It [the war] hasn't affected me at all, as far as I can recall,'' Mondt said. Beginning in 1951 his squadron from the war began holding reunions, and the original gathering had 41 participants. Though the numbers have dwindled, Mondt still attends reunion functions for the war. I commend David Mondt for his many years of loyalty and service to our great nation. It is an immense honor to represent him in the United States Congress, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.