releases: https://www.hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/releases?ContentRecord_id=8a9c5979-7566-48e1-a241-4f88205efaa6
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| https://www.hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/releases?ContentRecord_id=8a9c5979-7566-48e1-a241-4f88205efaa6 | Senator Hatch Remarks as Prepared for Taylorsville Veterans Day Program | 2014-11-12 | 2014 | 2014-11 | Republican | House | UT | Orrin Hatch | H000338 | www.hatch.senate.gov | legacy | SALT LAKE CITY, Utah. Senator Hatch delivered the following remarks at the Taylorsville Veterans Day program yesterday: It is a great privilege to be with you today for the Taylorsville City Veterans Day Celebration. I hope you all enjoyed the great veteran’s parade. I want to thank the two Grand Marshals of the parade: Jill Atwood, who served seven years in the National Guard, including a tour in Saudi Arabia; and Valentina Paddock who served in the US Marine Corps during the Korean War. These two women represent the dedication and ideals of the United States Military with dignity and grace. I also want to thank Mayor Larry Johnson who has organized and conducted such a wonderful Veteran’s Day program. Thank you for your dedicated service to Taylorsville City and the wonderful state of Utah. While driving to Taylorsville City Hall today, I was greeted -- like all of you -- by a magnificent sight: the flags of honor that have been set up and flown to represent Utah’s fallen soldiers from recent conflicts. What a wonderful memorial to our fallen heroes who paid the ultimate sacrifice for freedom! We are here today to pay tribute to our nation’s veterans. However, I also want to honor the family members who are left at home to keep families and day-to-day life moving forward. Your sacrifices will never be overlooked or forgotten. Thank you for the support you give to the men and women who wear our nation’s uniform. I know that all of you spouses, or significant others of veterans would never treat a veteran as badly as Becky treated Ricky, a Marine stationed in Afghanistan. She wrote him what some call a “Dear John” letter that stated: Dear Ricky, I can no longer continue our relationship. The distance between us is just too great. I must admit that I have cheated on you twice, since you’ve been gone, and it’s not fair to either of us. I’m, sorry. Please return the picture of me that I sent to you. Love, Becky With hurt feelings, the Marine asked his fellow soldiers for any snapshots they could spare of their girlfriends, ex-girlfriends, aunts, cousins, etc. In addition to the picture of Becky, Ricky included all the other pictures of the pretty gals he had collected from his buddies. There were 57 photos in that envelope. . . .along with this note: Dear Becky, I’m so sorry, but I can’t quite remember who you are. Please take your picture from the pile, and send the rest back to me. Take care, Ricky It truly is a great honor for me to join with you in honoring our veterans who have given us so much and paid so dearly to protect our liberties and the American way of life. As demonstrated by the veterans here today -- as well as by the blood and sacrifice of many Americans throughout our nation’s history -- our sacred liberty and way of life are worth defending. And as I stand here before you, my heart is not only with those fallen heroes and veterans who have passed away, but also with our brave service members today who are following in their footsteps in faraway lands. In President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, he said: “Our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” From the earliest days of conflict to the present, more than 1.3 million Americans have paid the ultimate sacrifice to, as Lincoln put it, test “whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and dedicated, can long endure.” Today, thanks to the sacrifices of our veterans, America not only endures but inspires heads and hearts across the globe with a love of freedom and liberty. That’s why, in my service to our beloved state and nation, I feel it an honor and sacred duty to pay homage to them at every opportunity – on Civil War battlefields such as Antietam and Gettysburg; at the memorials on the National Mall in Washington; and at wonderful monuments like the one erected here. I regard these places as sacred ground. Of all the solemn memorials in our nation’s capital, perhaps none gives more pause for gratitude and reflection than Arlington Cemetery’s the Tomb of the Unknowns – more commonly referred to as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I’m particularly moved by the inscription on its western panel: “Here rests in glory an American soldier known but to God.” Since the soldiers represented at the memorial are not identified, they have to come to symbolize all our brave service members who have given their lives for our freedom. They signify that America’s fallen heroes may be gone, but they will never be forgotten. Just as God has not forgotten these soldiers, neither should we forget the sacrifices they made to preserve our liberty. In the Hatch household we honor my older brother Jess, a nose gunner in a B-24 Liberator who was killed in action during World War II. I idolized him as a boy, and I still do. Losing him has made me more fully appreciate the incredible sacrifices made by our veterans and their families, including so many here in Utah. I am profoundly grateful to each and every one of them – for their example, service, and courage. In 1991, while sitting in the Atlanta Airport, I wrote an elegy in honor of my brother Jess, entitled very simply: “Veteran’s Day.” I would like to share it with you today. Almost 40 years ago My only brother died We know not how, But it must have been badly, For one member of his crew Returned, unspeaking Never to talk again. About the awful end Which laid my brother down, ‘Till brought home again Encased in metal No longer to be seen, Or touched, or loved Except in absentia For future time God provides, To those who hope, Who pray; Who never go away. In spite of death I used to visit his grave, And wait and pray, And wait some more, As though I might hear A voice from the grave, Or at least sounds from there To me, to my soul, Which worries so, About my brother Jess. It falls on every American -- including all of us here today – to take up Lincoln’s charge and dedicate ourselves to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” We all must continue the fight for freedom. Last Sunday marked the 25th Anniversary of one of the most remarkable days in modern history that so poignantly represents the ultimate gift and desire for freedom – the collapse of the Berlin Wall. As we all observed news footage and old photos from that momentous day, my soul was filled with gratitude and appreciation for America and what it represents to the entire world. So on this Veteran’s Day, it is important to remember that through the dedicated service of our military, tyranny and threats are diminished, while freedom grows stronger. And as President Reagan so famously stated, “We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.” Thank you again for the honor of joining with you today. May God continue to bless you, and our beloved state and nation. | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |