May 18, 2006- Honoring Former Congressman Sonny Montgomery

HON. MARCY KAPTUR
 OF OHIO
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
THURSDAY, MAY 18, 2006

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to pay tribute to aformer Member of this body, Congressman Sonny G.V. Montgomery of Meridian, Mississippi.Our Nation laid him to rest this week in his home State.

As a Congresswoman who arrived here in the early 1980s, it was my greatprivilege to serve on the committee which he chaired, the Veterans' Committee,which was his life here in the Congress of the United States. I can recall so manytimes, as a Member of that committee, what a gracious, gracious Chair he was.Even to the new young members who had much to learn. I remember so much of whathe did and the camaraderie that he established as a very precious gift not justto the committee or to the Congress but to the Nation. And we could use more ofthat spirit here today.

I remember in 1984 when the Montgomery G.I. Bill passed in a DemocraticCongress with his leadership, how generation after generation a young veteranwould come to be able to afford an education and to obtain decent health careand what he did to strengthen our Armed Forces, including our Guard andReserve, and given us the best Armed Forces that the world has ever known. Hehardly ever claimed credit for that publicly, and yet he worked on it foryears.

I can remember many State of the Union addresses where in what I called theMontgomery chair back there in the back row he would sit and he would welcomethe Presidents from each party as they would come into this Chamber, and Icannot ever remember Sonny Montgomery losing his temper. If he did, I certainlynever saw it.

I watched him when we struggled with the issue of Agent Orange. When some ofthe scientists who testified before the committee said, We really cannot showcausality, we cannot show that, in fact, this veteran has cancer because he wasmixing Agent Orange in big vats with paddles in Vietnam back in the 1960s and early1970s. And there came a point in the committee when Sonny said, You know, thereis a time when you have to do what is morally right even though it may not bescientifically provable. And for the first time in the Nation's history since Vietnam we wereable to treat veterans who contracted serious illnesses as a result of theirservice. Special centers were set up, such as in New York, in order that we could assess andlearn about these terrible, terrible illnesses that resulted from exposure toAgent Orange.

Sonny Montgomerytraveled to the districts of the Members of his committee. I was so impressed,because many times we would get a veteran who, unfortunately, because ofillness would be out of control in the audience, and Sonny had a way of movinghis hand and talking to the veteran, kind of calming him down. He was anamazing, amazing man to watch.

He loved veterans. He loved Americans, but he had a special gift to be ableto reach those who sometimes were distant. Half of the homeless in America areveterans. The work that he did as Chair of that committee helped us torecognize for the first time the problem of homeless veterans.

He got great assistance from a young Congressman then who had joined thecommittee, Lane Evans of Illinois,who currently due to Parkinson's illness is in Illinois right now trying to heal himself.These men did so much for our Nation and for the improvement of the conditionsunder which our veterans serve.

I can remember when Sonny came to my district in Ohio. It didn't matter where you took him,to a Veterans Post, a Legion Post, a public meeting, people would stand andcheer. He was ``Mr. Veteran'' from coast to coast. And he left a legacy ofimproved education, of improved health care, of a veterans system thatincreased the number of health care clinics, both in urban and rural areas, tocare for our veterans, and he took very seriously the slogan from Lincoln thatis on the front of the Department of Veterans Affairs, ``To care for them whoshall have borne the battle, his widow or widower, and his or her orphan.'' Helived it.

He traveled the world. We improved cemeteries around the world for ourveterans. We worked on housing programs to go beyond the GI single-family homemortgage to multiple family home construction.

He did so much so quietly and so effectively. Personally, he worked with memany, many years as we were trying to build the World War II memorial here inWashington in three different committees of jurisdiction, and yet was thatsteady force that was always at our side as we worked for 17 years to move thatpiece of legislation from dropping it here in the hopper all the way todedication just a few years ago here on the Nation's Mall.

His staff, Matt Fleming, Gloria Royce, so many people who served on thatcommittee, knew that they had worked with a very great man, a man who alwayscarried himself with great humility and great humor.

He was one of the founders of the Prayer Breakfast, the Bipartisan PrayerBreakfast here that meets every Thursday morning, and he offered the ``sick andwounded report.'' He took an interest in every Member here, and he would knowabout their families and he would report to us on what was happening, and hebuilt such a bond between people on both sides of the aisle.

I look at a certain Member whose voting record is different than mine, and Iwill say, how did I meet that person? My gosh, I met that person at the PrayerBreakfast with Sonny Montgomery.

He would go to the national meetings of the VFW or when the young winnerswould be selected from the Voice of Democracy awards at the VFW or through theAmerican Legion and would receive standing ovations by thousands and thousandsand thousands of people.

He was a two star general himself, having served in World War II, in Korea and then,of course, in the Guard, and he became a champion of the Guard and Reserve at atime when so many Americans were not really paying attention. He improved thefacilities, he improved their opportunities.

So today, Mr. Speaker, in ending my remarks, I just want to say it was trulya deep, deep privilege to serve with Congressman and General Sonny G.V.Montgomery of Meridian, Mississippi. It is obvious the people of his districtlove