Remarks by Senator Richard J. Durbin
Honoring Those Who Have Served – Veterans Day 2012

We’ve heard an awful lot lately about the wealthiest one percent of Americans. On this first day in session after Veterans Day, I would like to talk about another one percent – the one percent of Americans who volunteer today to defend the rest of us.

Thirty years ago today: Dedicating “The Wall”

First, I want to say a few words about veterans of earlier wars.

Thirty years ago today, thousands of veterans of the Vietnam War came to Washington. They gave themselves the homecoming parade they deserved but almost none had ever received.

With wounded veterans in wheelchairs leading the parade, they marched up Constitution Avenue to dedicate the National Vietnam Veterans Memorial, on whose polished granite walls were etched the names of their nearly 58,000 dead and missing comrades-in-arms.

This photograph was taken at that dedication. This is Joseph Ambrose, from Joliet, Illinois.

Mr. Ambrose was 86 years old when this photo was taken. He is wearing the same uniform he wore as a 19-year-old U.S. Army private in France in World War I.

In his arms is the flag that covered the coffin of his son, who died in the Korean War.

Joseph Ambrose wore his old Army “doughboy” uniform and carried his son’s flag often to Veterans Day parades and VFW conventions.

He confessed that some years he had to go on a crash diet to squeeze back into it. But he did it to honor the veterans of the Korean and the Vietnam wars, wars he believed America was trying then to forget.

He wanted to remind us of an important truth: that no matter the outcome of a war, those who answer the call of duty and risk everything to defend America deserve the respect of a grateful nation.

Joseph Ambrose (1895)