Congressional Record UNUM

E PLURIBUS

United States

of America PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 110th

 CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION

∑ This ‘‘bullet’’ symbol identifies statements or insertions which are not spoken by a Member of the Senate on the floor.

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S10399 

Vol. 154 WASHINGTON, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2008 No. 160 

Senate 

(Legislative Day of Wednesday, September 17, 2008) 

The Senate met at 10 a.m., on the expiration of the recess, and was called to 

order by the Honorable MARK L. 

PRYOR, a Senator from the State of Arkansas. 

PRAYER

The Chaplain, Dr. Barry C. Black, offered the following prayer: 

Let us pray. 

Eternal God, today we open our 

hearts to You as we remember that 

You are our help in ages past and our 

hope for years to come. Lead our Senators as they recall Your care over our 

Nation in the past and Your mercy 

which follows us all our days. Bless the 

many people who work long hours on 

the Senate staffs and reward them for 

their diligent faithfulness. 

Heal the sick, make strong the wavering, guide the perplexed, and befriend the lonely. Today, may faith replace fear, justice triumph over greed, 

and peace conquer strife. 

We pray in the Redeemer’s Name. 

Amen. 

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PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 

The Honorable MARK L. PRYOR led 

the Pledge of Allegiance, as follows: 

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the 

United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, 

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 

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APPOINTMENT OF ACTING 

PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will please read a communication 

to the Senate from the President pro 

tempore (Mr. BYRD). 

The assistant legislative clerk read 

the following letter: 

U.S. SENATE, 

PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE, 

Washington, DC, October 2, 2008. 

To the Senate: 

Under the provisions of rule I, paragraph 3, 

of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I hereby 

appoint the Honorable MARK L. PRYOR, a 

Senator from the State of Arkansas, to perform the duties of the Chair. 

ROBERT C. BYRD, 

President pro tempore. 

Mr. PRYOR thereupon assumed the 

chair as Acting President pro tempore. 

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RECOGNITION OF THE MAJORITY 

LEADER 

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader is recognized. 

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SCHEDULE 

Mr. REID. Mr. President, this morning following leader remarks, we are 

going to be in morning business with 

Senators allowed to speak for up to 10 

minutes each. There will be no rollcall 

votes today. 

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TRIBUTE TO SENATORS 

CHUCK HAGEL

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I want to 

spend just a few minutes today talking 

about CHUCK HAGEL, the Senator from 

the State of Nebraska. 

I was raised in an environment where 

things were physical—football, baseball, boxing, fighting, and being tough. 

That was important. And as I have 

looked through the Senate over these 

years, there is no one that fits that bill 

more than CHUCK HAGEL. The senior 

Senator from the State of Nebraska is 

both physically and mentally very 

tough. 

Senator HAGEL is a person who suffered multiple broken noses playing 

high school and college football and, as 

we read in his book, an occasional scuffle off the field. Senator HAGEL is a 

man who won a football scholarship to 

go to college because of his athletic 

prowess but had to change his plans 

when injury left him with an 

uncorrectable pinched nerve in his 

neck. 

Senator HAGEL is a man who risked 

his own life on many occasions, but on 

one occasion risked his own life and 

suffered terribly to save his brother’s 

life in the jungle of Cambodia during 

the Vietnam conflict. Senator HAGEL is 

a man who still carries shrapnel from 

his heroic uniformed service to our Nation. 

Senator HAGEL tells the story in his 

book about his childhood, that when he 

and his brother Tom were growing up, 

the Hagel family moved around Nebraska to seven different houses in 

small Nebraska towns. The seven 

places he lived formed a loop around 

the State. So when CHUCK first ran for 

the Senate in 1996, he could go almost 

anyplace in Nebraska and tell local 

crowds, ‘‘it’s good to be home.’’ 

When CHUCK HAGEL’s draft number 

was called in 1967, he was given an 

order to ship out to Germany after 

being inducted. But he said: I don’t 

want to go to Germany. The war is in 

Vietnam. So he asked to change his orders to go to Vietnam where the action 

was. What this young man from Nebraska believed was that fighting a war 

meant going to the front lines, not 

someplace thousands of miles away. So 

that is where he wound up. 

Since the Sullivan brothers’ deaths 

in World War II, it was not very often 

that siblings found themselves in the 

same combat zone fighting, but that 

isn’t what happened in this situation 

with the Hagel brothers. No one really 

knows how—they think it was a stroke 

of luck, but it remains a bit of a mystery—CHUCK HAGEL and Tom Hagel 

wound up in the same infantry, same 


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