On the recordMarch 18, 2010
I join my colleague and friend Senator Whitehouse in paying tribute to an extraordinary American, an extraordinary Rhode Islander, George Panichas. He has been a friend and a mentor to both of us. He has been a force throughout his life for not only what we believe is central to America--opportunity for all, a sense of fairness and justice and decency--but he also has been intimately involved in his native land, Greece and Cyprus. He is someone who represents the ideal of what an American should be. As a young man, he was a member of, at that time, the U.S. Army Air Corps. He flew 50 missions. He was a gunner on the aircraft. I think all of us recognize--although we did not participate in such challenging assignments--the kind of courage and mental toughness it takes to get in that aircraft and risk your life 50 times at least and to do so in an atmosphere of tension and danger. And George did it. Like so many of his generation, when he came home, he did not boast about it. He decided, though, that his service was not going to end with his discharge from the U.S. Army Air Corps. He was going to continue to serve this Nation because he had participated with his colleagues, his contemporaries, in a noble effort. He understood the decency of America.
