Senator Joseph Max Cleland VA Medical Renaming Ceremony

Ann Brown, [Cleland VA Medical Center Director], thank you.

Ms. Emily Foster, and all Senator Cleland’s family, friends, and caregivers—we’re grateful to be able to share this time with you.

And, please, Emily, send my warmest wishes to Linda Dean.

Fifty-five years ago when Captain Cleland was grievously wounded on Hill 471 in Vietnam, Marine Charlie Waldron was one of those who helped save his life. And though Charlie couldn’t know it, when he saved Max, Charlie was saving the lives of thousands of other American Veterans.

Here’s what I mean. Fast forward. A little over two decades later. A different place. A different war. Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Desert Storm. The SCUD missile that exploded in the 475th Quartermaster Group barracks killed 28 soldiers, the greatest combat loss of a single Army unit since Vietnam. And in the years after that tragedy, Sergeant Major Wilbert Jordan, the 475th G4 Sergeant Major, blamed himself for those soldiers’ deaths.

In his sleep, he saw images of the soldiers he served beside. Depression, he said, hit him “like a freight train.” And Sergeant Major Jordan descended to those dark, painful places trauma can take anyone—self-medicating with alcohol to try to ease the suffering—all the while haunted by thoughts of suicide. Then, his brother—a Vietnam Veteran—told him, VA can help.

Sergeant Major Jordan went to the Atlanta Vet Center … the same Vet Center Senator Cleland frequented. He sat down with Shirley Duvall, his counselor. And when he started talking, he cried, cried when he started unpacking and unloading that enormous burden he was bearing. Step by step, Shirley walked with him, and he learned, “I have a life to live, and I have to start living.”

Sergeant Major Jordan’s here today, helping us honor Senator Cleland. And just as we hear from so many Vet Center Vets, he’ll tell you those counselors saved his life. Remember Charlie Waldron, the Marine who helped save Captain Cleland’s life on Hill 471? Well, decades after that terrible day, Charlie told Senator Cleland that a Vet Center in California saved his life. And Charlie became a Vet Center counselor himself—another angel of mercy helping his fellow Vets.

Veterans serving Veterans, there’s nothing better. Vet Centers, they’re an incredible story of Veterans serving Veterans. You see, in the mid- to late-70s, it was Vietnam Vets like Max, like Floyd Scott, like Don Crawford, Art Blank, and so many others who saw a dire need for psychological readjustment counseling for Vets coming home from Vietnam. So they stepped in and established storefront counseling centers for Vets.

VA copied that model. And VA Administrator Cleland didn’t put them on VA campuses. He put them in communities. He put them where Veterans and service members live and work and could more easily access them. Today, there are 300 Vet Centers. There’s a fleet of more than 80 Mobile Vet Centers. And we have numerous satellite locations. They’re in every state and territory.

Thanks to Max and his brothers- and sisters-in-arms, hundreds of thousands of Vets, service members, and families—including National Guard, Reserve, and their families—don’t have to walk those dark paths alone. They have Vet Center counselors helping guide them to light. Senator Cleland  called those counselors heroes.

“’It’s a comfort to know,” Max once said, “there are heroes among us … regular people … willing to do what they can to make the world a better place.”

“Heroes give,” he said, “instead of take.”

“They act,” he said, “instead of talk.”

“They [measure] their own success not by wealth or comfort, but by the lives they touch along the way.”

He said, “That’s what heroes do.”

That’s what Senator Cleland did. He touched so many lives along the way. He understood about Vets’ journeys to some dark places. He’d been there himself. He found the light. And he’s lighting our way right now. By renaming the Atlanta VAMC for Captain, and Administrator, and Senator Max Cleland, we’re recommitting ourselves to his vision of a VA that’s accessible, available, and responsive to every Veteran, whenever that Vet needs us, just as Max was all those things to generations of Georgia’s Veterans.

May God bless Senator Cleland’s soul. Senator Ossoff, Senator Warnock, thank you for leading, thank you for honoring this courageous Veteran, staunch patriot, devoted Veterans’ advocate, true servant of the people. Senator Max Cleland was, truly, a giant of a man.