Thomas Daschle: “the debt we owe to the men and women who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces is one that we will never be able to repay…”

“the debt we owe to the men and women who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces is one that we will never be able to repay adequately. They sacrifice so much of themselves to defend our nation and its ideals, and ask for so little in return. Today, I would like to focus the Senate's attention on one such veteran, who entered the United States Marine Corps more than a quarter-century ago. Colonel Wayne Shaw, who was a Marine for over 28 years, retired recently and delivered a farewell address to his fellow officers at Quantico, Virginia. Colonel Shaw's address at Quantico was not your typical ``feel-good'' retirement speech. In it, he makes a number of observations about how the Marine Corps has changed in recent years--and how, in his view, many of those changes have weakened the Corps that, for the sake of our country and the world, needs to remain strong. Not a man to mince words, Colonel Shaw lists in his speech a number of concerns he has about the future of the Marine Corps.”