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M. A. Gitt

July 30, 1968 
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - Extensions of Remarks 
E7135

National's customers are heading to or form the District.

It is at least arguable whether the commuting time to Dulles is not more than offset in a great many cases by the time consumed by aircraft waiting on the ground at National or orbiting in the skies above it.

How the carriers can seriously urge the lengthening of a major runway at National in the face of present crowding and the steady escalation of passenger totals defies logic.

If Washington would profit from the particularly frustrating situation the nation has been experiencing, the expansion plans for National should be abandoned, with much more traffic diverted to Dulles.

With the regional system thus in better balance, the ordeal of travel by air is sure to be less--at least for a time. 

A PORTRAIT OF A GEORGIA MAN: COURAGE FOR THOSE LEFT BEHIND

HON. G. ELLIOTT HAGAN
OF GEORGIA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Tuesday, July 30, 1968

Mr. HAGAN. Mr. Speaker, many brave Americans have died in the wars fought by this country in its less than 200 years of existence. While none of the conflicts have been really popular, the majority of citizens of the United States at least understood the reasons for the wars being fought. In the case of the present conflict in Vietnam, it is easy to doubt that the majority of Americans understand why we are there.

Too many people use our involvement in Vietnam as the focal point for their mindless dissent, and far too many politicians use it as a "whipping boy," for their own self-seeking purposes.
 
But I am proud to tell my colleagues in the House that the overwhelming majority of Georgians are aware of their priceless American heritage. And it is the loved ones, especially the mothers, who are all too acutely aware of the high price we are paying in the fight against Godless communism. This was best demonstrated in a recent newspaper article, printed initially in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, and reprinted in the Ludowici, Ga. News on July 18 of this year:

Billy Did His Part-A Portrait Of Georgia Man: Courage For Those Left Behind
(By Harold Martin)

The headlines over the front page stories say: "2 Georgians Killed in Vietnam"-"3 Georgians Killed..."-"5 Georgians..."

The names are listed, and their home towns, and the names of their wives and parents. But who are these Georgians who are dying in Vietnam? What are they like?

Here is a portrait of one of them:

His name was Billy Sapp and he lived in Loudowici. He was 25 years old and a Spec. 4 in the Infantry, and he had been in the Army less than a year when he was killed, fighting to hold a hill in Vietnam.

The people in his home community remember him as quiet, well behaved, unwarlike, a man unconvinced that he had any real business being in Vietnam. But a man also convinced that when your country is committed, you don't express your opposition by burning your draft card.

You go down and hold up you hand and swear to protect and defend your country, and you go where you are sent, and you do what you are told to do.

And you discover that, as danger and hardship begin, doubts dissolve. The great camaraderie that links men who share a common danger takes a hold of you. The issues of right and wrong become academic. You do your best because you cannot let your comrades down.

And, sometimes you die. But in dying, you pass on some of your courage and your strength to those you left at home. So that they remember you as Mrs. Edwina Long remembers her son, Billy Sapp, and writes of him in his home town paper, The Liberty County Herald:

"It's dawn, and my son's coffin lies, draped with a flag in our living room. He has spent his last night at home," she wrote.

"I am at peace now, after months of heartache and worry-first, because he had been wounded twice, then the 'missing' message, then death. We thought of capture, that perhaps he was lying wounded somewhere unable to get help, and there was nothing we could do. 

"Billy tried to enlist four years ago. I went with him. He wanted to go into the service then, but he was turned down. He worked for a while, then when the world situation grew worse and the demand for soldiers greater, he was inducted. He was then 24. He was trained at Fort Benning, and went to Vietnam in November, 1967. He was with the Fourth Division, 14th Infantry.

"We took him in the plane when, after his training, he was order to Vietnam. As he was going up into the plane he dropped his tickets, and had to come back down and get them. He just smile. That was the last time I saw him.

"I feel that I want to pay tribute to hm and all the others who have died; the ones who have come back from Vietnam and the ones still there. It is a cruel war, a different war, but I know from my Billy's letters that they know what they're fighting for over there.What they are accomplishing, I don't know.

"But I do know that he went with his head held high and proud to serve his country. Even though he was my son, I can truthfully say, he was the most unselfish person I have ever known. He put other first. He was a middle child with two brothers who have received honors at times, but he was never jealous. Although he was not a studious person, he loved his brothers and sisters and was always proud of them. Billy was not perfect, but  was always kind and obedient.

"His quiet smile will live in my memory forever; I will not forget the times he went with me to the doctor, and how considerate he was of me. His favorite expression was 'Take it easy' when warning me not to drive too fast or 'Take care' which he wrote on the back of his picture that he gave me.

"We're going to his funeral today, and I will hold my head high because he would want me to. 

"He knew we loved him. From his letters he knew our hearts and prayers were with him. He knew he had a job to do over there and he did it to the best of his ability.

'Dear God, give me the courage to live, not in vain, because I have been spared, and I pray that he and so many others have not died in vain, but that somehow this world will become a better place because of the sacrifice our sons are making.

"They're saying to us, ' To you , from failing hands we throw the torch, be yours to hold it high.'

"I feel that my Billy has done his part."

GALLAGHER CALLS AGE DISCRIMINATION WASTE OF VALUABLE HUMAN RESOURCES

HON. CORNELIUS E. GALLAGHER
OF NEW JERSEY
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Tuesday, July 30, 1968

Mr. GALLAGHER. Mr. Speaker, at this time of national crisis, all of us realize the importance of utilizing all our human resources to meet the complex problems which confront our Nation. We can be justly proud of the tremendous strides that Congress has made in elimination the waste of human resources through discrimination based on race, religion, and sex. 

This editorial from the Elizabeth Daily Journal of June 12 calls attention to another form of discrimination which results in the waste of valuable human resources: age discrimination. Many skilled and hard-working Americans between the ages of 40 and 65 experience great difficulty in finding employment. This means a loss of economic productivity that this Nation can ill afford.

I believe that every Member should read this penetrating analysis of what has been done and what remains to be done in dealing with this problem. I insert the editorial into the Record at this point:

AGE DISCRIMINATION

One of the most important of the Civil Right measures of the past few years goes into effect today with only a half-hearted chance * * *. 

In a period that stresses youth, from education to rights on the campus, the Age Discrimination Act points up the failure of labor and management to protect the rights of workers between the ages of 40 and 65.  Too often they have fallen victim to the youth emphasis in hiring practices and labor contracts.

Employers, undertaking insurance and retirement programs, have sometimes claimed it is too costly to take a man on a new job if he is in the 40 to 65 age bracket. Labor unions, through pressure for early retirement, sometimes at eh age of 55, have harmed the interests of older working men who find it necessary or convenient to switch jobs in mid-life. Thus, the drive for economic security has made millions insecure.

This type of either deliberate or unconscious discrimination is a moral blight that has been an injustice to many of the men who struggled through the nation's depression, helped mold the labor movement, and were instrumental in creating the American industrial complex. Where their expertise once was important in finding a new job and helping a employer, they are now looked upon as insurance risks; a denial of the spirit of early American enterprise.

The most concrete provision of the new law forbids the inclusion of age preferences in job advertisements. On the other hand, the law does not cover situations where age is a "bona fide" job qualification or where employment of an older worker would violate the "bona fide" employe [[employee]] benefit plan. These are wide loopholes that must be closed.

The final measure should not be a man's age, no more his skin, religion or nationality, but his ability to perform a particular job. It is long past time that some of those employe [[employee]] forms, worked out by such experts as psychologists and personnel man-