Senate Proceeding 11-10-09 on Nov 10th, 2009 :: 0:23:35 to 0:34:20
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0:23:25 to 0:23:45( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: quorum call: mr. webb: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. web be with i ask consent vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. webb: may i ask the chair, are we in morning business? the presiding officer: the senate is considering the appropriations bill. mr. webb: i ask unanimous

0:23:35 to 0:34:20( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: James Webb

0:23:46 to 0:24:07( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. webb: thank you, mr. president. i actually came to the floor to join with senator thune and to congratulate him on the effort that he has undertaken to rededicate a site in washington,

0:24:08 to 0:24:29( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: d.c., to become the national world war i memorial. i'm an original cosponsor on that legislation and apparently he is tied up in some sort of meeting right just precede him and give my thoughts and my support for the legislation that he's introduced.

0:24:30 to 0:24:51( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: before i do that, i'd like to point out that this is november 10, and marines around the world stop on this day every year no matter where they are, no matter what they're doing, to commemorate what we call the marine

0:24:52 to 0:25:12( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: the celebration of the initial recruitment and organization of the marin corps, at a place called tunn tavern in philadelphia in 1775. this is the 234th anniversary of the founding of the marine corps, and as one who has proudly served in the united

0:25:13 to 0:25:33( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: states marines, who has a brother who is a marine, who has a son and a son-in-law, three of us infantry combat veterans, i'd like to extend my congratulations to all of those who serv served in the marine corps in the past and to those who are doing such a fine and difficult job today all around the world.

0:25:34 to 0:25:55( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: this is the finest fighting organization in the world. i'm very proud to have been a part of it at one point in my life, and we all wish success and the best to our marines. tomorrow is veterans day, where we will stop as a nation on a national holiday to commemorate

0:25:56 to 0:26:16( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: the service all of those who've served our country throughout our history and to thank the 23.4 million veterans in this country for the service that they have given in war and in peace, extending all the way back in terms of living veterans to world war i, which i'm going

0:26:17 to 0:26:37( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: to talk about in a minute. i think we have e surving veterans from world war i -- one surviving veteran from world war i still alive. we have some world war ii veterans who are still with us. and we want to, as so many people have pointed out today, do our best to take care of

0:26:38 to 0:26:58( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: those who have served our country, to honor that service, and with respect to the legislation that senator thune put together, which i am an original cosponsor on, we should stop today and think about those

0:26:59 to 0:27:20( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: who served in world war i. and the memorial that he is proposing, i think, has three important benits to our country. the first is that it will help us rember a war tha is not really appropriately rembered in our own history, i think --

0:27:21 to 0:27:45( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: the importance of it, the incredible carnage that took place, the way that it changed the face of the civilized world. the second is to think about our own world war i veterans and the struggles that ty went through in terms of putting together the right sort of care and benefits for those who followed them. and the third is to talk about

0:27:46 to 0:28:06( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: the site itself. that senator thune has done such a fine job in discovering and proposing. we in this country did not get involved in world war i until the very end of the war, and i think that is one of the reasons that perhaps we don't consider

0:28:07 to 0:28:27( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: in enough detail what an impact that war had on the civilized world, as it was then known, on the relationships, particularly among the european powers, and also the place of the united states in world affairs. these numrs are rough, but they're fairly close.

0:28:28 to 0:28:48( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: i think they're accurate enough that i could use them today. in world war i,he german army lost 1.8 million soldiers. the french lost 1.7 million soldiers. dead. the british empire lost nearly 1 million soldiers. dead.

0:28:49 to 0:29:11( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: the impact on those cultures and on the economy and the health of communities was enormous. we came in at the end of the war. the unitedtates lost 5,000 soldiers on the battlefield in less than a year, lost another 55,000 to asian flu epidemic that swept through the world and had a very strong impact on

0:29:12 to 0:29:33( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: those who were serving in the military. lost 110,000 in uniform during that war. the impact it had on the relationships among european countries was enormous, and it's much more fully understood in other countries than it is here in the united states. the russian revolution occurred

0:29:34 to 0:29:54( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: during world war i. the way that we negotiated the settlement after world war 1 brought about within a short period of time the rise of fascism and naziism in germany. the british empire began to spend itself down in a way that would a fairly conclusive impact after the additional carnage of

0:29:55 to 0:30:17( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: world war ii. all of those things impacted this country in a way that pushed us to the forefront in many ways in terms of our place in the world because of the exhaustion thad happened in these other societies. our world war 1 veterans had a

0:30:18 to 0:30:38( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: very difficult time in a transitional period in terms of how we define veterans themselves. previous to world war 1, when soldiers left the military, they got what was called mustering out pay. when they reached a certain age, no matter what their service was in terms of disability or those sorts of things, they got a

0:30:39 to 0:31:00( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: pension, an automatic pension, all the way through our history until world war 1. world war 1 veterans didn't get either of those. some of us who are fond of looking at american history in the 1930's will rember the veterans' bonus march where the world war 1 veterans literally camped out in the nation's capital saying they need to get

0:31:01 to 0:31:23( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: the same kind of bonus that those who preceded them received. they didn't receive that bonus. they did fight hard and long and were able to bring about the creation of the v.a. medical system, but they didn't get a g.i. bill. they didn't get so many things that the other veterans who followed them received.

0:31:24 to 0:31:45( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: and yet, when i was much younger and working as a committee counsel in the house on veterans issues, we were still seeing the world war 1 veterans. they felt a stewardship to those who served in world war ii. they helped push through the g.i. bill. they compensation packages that were unheard of before.

0:31:46 to 0:32:06( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: we owe our world war 1 veterans a great deal not simply for what they did on the battlefield but how they helped transform veterans law into today. the site that senator thune proposed and to which i agree for a world war 1 memorial i believe is perfectly placed. we're all very sensitive in terms of putting additional

0:32:07 to 0:32:28( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: memorials and monuments on the national mall. i was involved in the formulation stages of the vietnam veterans memorial on the mall, and that was one of the big pushbacks here in congress and also from the national capital planning commission and other entities that you don't want to put so many memorials on

0:32:29 to 0:32:51( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: the mall that you impact the free flow of tourists and people visiting that area. but right now here's what we have on the mall. i wish i had a diagram. we hav the vietnam veterans memorial just down from the lincoln's memorial. to its south we have the korean

0:32:52 to 0:33:12( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: war men and memorial. farther to the east we have world war ii memorial. almost in a diagrammatic diamond, there is a place presently where the district of columbia was allowed to place a memorial to those who had served in world war 1 and were

0:33:13 to 0:33:35( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: residents of the district of columbia. and what senator thune has proposed and what i strongly also support is to take this existing memorial which is in some disrepair at the moment, quite frankly -- i've been by it a number of times -- and to upgrade it so that it would

0:33:36 to 0:33:58( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: become the national world war i memorial. so we would have on the mall in a very tasteful way four sites dedicated to the four major wars that our country was involved in in the 20th century. i can't think of a better way right now for us to recommend and rember the service of

0:33:59 to 0:34:19( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: those who served in world war i and for the rest of the people in this country and also to be encouraged to rember the impact that that war had and the sacrifices that people who served in that war made. so i rise, as i mentioned earlier, to commend the senator from south dakota for his

0:34:20 to 0:34:21( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: recommendation and also, as i