Byron Dorgan: “In April of this year I was in Italy. I had stopped at an American military cemetery about 15, 20 minutes outside of…”

“In April of this year I was in Italy. I had stopped at an American military cemetery about 15, 20 minutes outside of Florence. On a beautiful morning, the sun was shining on the graves of 5,000 American soldiers who left their homes, left their families, and answered the call to serve their country and gave their lives during the Second World War. Their final resting place is now a cemetery, a beautifully kept military cemetery maintained by the Battlefield Monuments Commission of our country south of Florence. I was thinking of that prose that says: When the night is full of knives and the lightning is seen and the drums are heard, the patriots are always there, ready to fight and ready to die, if necessary, to defend their country. Those patriots have given the ultimate sacrifice all across the world in defense of freedom here. I was thinking this morning of a telephone call last week. I called a German hospital in which Brandon Olson was resting. He had just been wounded in Iraq. I called him in the hospital and I called his mother. Brandon Olson's mother called him on Thursday. On Friday he had his foot amputated. She called him prior to surgery. When I talked to her, she told me her son was under heavy medication. She could tell when she called him that he was in pain and his voice was weak. This mother told her son, lying in the German hospital: You don't have to talk. I just want to hear you breathe.”