Mark Dayton: “I had planned to deliver this morning my first formal Senate remarks about the urgent need to provide prescription drug…”

“I had planned to deliver this morning my first formal Senate remarks about the urgent need to provide prescription drug coverage for America's senior citizens. It is a crisis affecting many Minnesota seniors, and I will return to the floor very soon to address its urgency. However, I have decided to defer my first address, to show my deep respect for the courageous soldiers killed in the recent crash of two Army Black Hawk helicopters. Two of the victims were native Minnesotans: Sergeant Thomas E. Barber and Major Robert L. Olson. I offer my deepest condolences to the families and friends of Major Olson, Sergeant Barber, and the four other soldiers who gave their lives in the service of our country. We join with you in mourning their deaths, and we pay tribute to them for their ultimate sacrifice on behalf of our national defense. My prayers also extend to the eleven (11) other soldiers, who were injured in the accident. May they be graced with swift and complete recoveries. As President Abraham Lincoln stated in his famous address at Gettysburg, "The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”