{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://mccaul.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/mccaul-urges-support-his-bill-renaming-bastrop-post-office-sergeant", "McCaul Urges Support for His Bill Renaming Bastrop Post Office in Sergeant Major Billy D. Waugh\u2019s Honor", "2024-12-17", "2024", "2024-12", "Republican", "House", "TX", "Michael T. McCaul", "M001157", "mccaul.house.gov", "mccaul", "https://mccaul.house.gov/media-center/press-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2013 U.S. Congressman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) spoke on the House Floor in support of his bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1106 Main Street in Bastrop, Texas, as the \u201cSergeant Major Billy D. Waugh Post Office,\u201d which passed by unanimous consent.\n\nImage\n\nClick to watch\n\n\u2013 Remarks as Delivered \u2013\n\nMr. Speaker,\n\nYou and I just returned from Luxembourg to honor the veterans of WWII who fought in the Battle of the Bulge.\n\nI was there on behalf of the House of Representatives, at the Speaker\u2019s request, to honor the Greatest Generation and their sacrifices to defeat evil and ensure that freedom would persevere.\n\nThose soldiers that braved the Nazi onslaught and the frozen forests of the Ardennes to liberate Europe are known as \u2018The Greatest Generation.\u2019\n\nSergeant Major Billy D. Waugh was part of that great generation.\n\nThe service website military.com, using the colloquial name for Special Forces made famous during the Vietnam War, called Mr. Waugh, \u2018The unparalleled godfather of the Green Berets.\u2019\n\nFor his long years of service and numerous missions with them, he led a lifelong commitment to his country from a young age. He understood, as [President] Reagan did, that \u2018Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for and protected.\u2019\n\nSergeant Major Waugh was born in 1929 and raised in Bastrop, Texas, in my district.\n\nAnd in 1945, after meeting two local United States Marines who returned from fighting in World War II, [the] then 15-year-old Mr. Waugh was inspired to enlist in the Marine Corps.\n\nKnowing that it was unlikely that he would be allowed to enlist in Texas due to his young age, Waugh decided to hitchhike to Los Angeles, where he believed he only had to be 16 years old.\n\nHe got as far as Las Cruces, New Mexico, before being turned around and sent back to Bastrop by a local police officer. That shows you the amount of patriotism this young 15-year-old had.\n\nLater, in 1948, he enlisted and served his country as an Army paratrooper and Special Forces soldier until 1972.\n\nSergeant Major Waugh was no stranger to the front and served seven years in combat during the Korean and Vietnam wars, where he was shot multiple times.\n\nWhile in combat, he was part of a high-altitude, low-opening, or HALO parachute assault, the first of its kind in military history.\n\nFor his service, Sergeant Major Waugh received dozens of military awards and medals, including the Silver Star, four Bronze Stars, a Presidential Unit Citation, and eight Purple Hearts for his combat wounds \u2014 placing him third on the list of most Purple Hearts ever received in the history of the United States military.\n\nAfter retirement, he joined the United States Postal Service \u2014 before again serving his country as a paramilitary operations officer in the Central Intelligence Agency \u2014 where he pursued terrorists, including Carlos the Jackal and Osama Bin Laden.\n\nMr. Waugh never lost his sense of duty, patriotism, and his enduring love of freedom.\n\nAnd at the age of 71, Mr. Waugh participated in Operation Enduring Freedom from October to December 2001 as a member of the CIA's Northern Alliance Liaison Team, which went into Afghanistan to work to topple the Taliban regime and Al Qaeda at the Battle of Tora Bora.\n\nSergeant Major Billy D. Waugh passed away last year at the age of 93.\n\nHe epitomized the American values of courage, patriotism, and self-sacrifice.\n\nThrough his unparalleled life of service, he undoubtedly saved countless American lives and pushed back terrorism and evil around the world.\n\nAfter a life of service to his country, it is only fitting that the post office located at 1106 Main Street in Bastrop, Texas, be named after him.\n\nNaming this post office after him is a testament to a life well-lived and an opportunity for all Texans to pay homage to this great American hero.\n\nI am inspired by him and \u2026 that he\u2019s from Texas.\n\nI support this measure, and may God hold Sergeant Major Waugh in the palm of His hand.\n\nI urge my colleagues to support this measure.\n\nI yield the balance of my time.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:07:19Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://mccaul.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/mccaul-urges-support-his-bill-renaming-bastrop-post-office-sergeant"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.425321213901043, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}