Duncan Hunter: “Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is my unfortunate honor to come before you and speak about a true son of America who lost his…”

“Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is my unfortunate honor to come before you and speak about a true son of America who lost his battle with cancer 6 days ago on November 22. I have an article here from the local paper in San Diego talking about Dan McKinnon, and it says, Dan McKinnon: Navy pilot, radio, and airline executive. Appointed to two Federal boards, was son of San Diego congressman. Those are a lot of things, but Dan McKinnon was so much more than those, even put together. First, his father was a Democrat congressman from San Diego here in the 1950s, probably stood at this table and spoke like I'm speaking now. Dan was a page, when we still had pages in this House on this floor in the fifties during the Truman administration as well. He had a great respect and love for this country, and he had a great respect and love for this body and the institution. He has some great claims to fame. One of those is this: As a young man, Dan served in the Navy as a helicopter pilot, and he's credited with 62 saves on land or sea. That's more saves during peacetime than any other Navy pilot in American history. He loved the Navy and he loved flying, and that led him to do other things later in his life. But he was a great pilot. He was inspired to fly from some words taken from the movie ``The Bridge Over Toko-Ri.'' And basically the words-- I'm going to summarize what made him want to be a helicopter pilot.…”