that the senate passed without amendment h.r. 5771, house concurrent resolution 124 signed sincerely, karen l. haas. the honorable the speaker, house of representatives. sir, pursuant to the permission a granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on december 17, 2014, at 10:41 a.m. that the senate passed without amendment h.r. 3608 h.r. 4030, house concurrent resolution 125. that the senate passed senate 1800, senate 684, appointment, united states-china economic security review commission, signed sincerely, karen l. haas. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 4 of rule 1 the following enrolled bills were signed by the speaker pro

-- speaker pro tempore harris on tuesday december 16. the clerk: h.r. 2591, h.r. 5859, senate 2338 senate 3008. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 4 of rule 1 the following enrolled bills were signed by speaker pro tempore harris on wednesday, december 17, 2014. the clerk: h.r. 1206, h.r. 1378, h.r. 2754, h.r. 3027 h.r. 3572, h.r. 3979, h.r. 4276, h.r. 4416 mr 4651 h.r. 5050, h.r. 5185, h.r. 5331 h.r. 5562, h.r. 5687, and h.r. 5816. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 4 of rule 1, the following enrolled bills were signed by speaker pro

tempore thornberry on thursday, december 18, 2014. the clerk: h.r. 1068 h.r. 2901, h.r. 3608 h.r. 4030, h.r. 5771. the speaker pro tempore: without objection h.r. 647 is laid on the table. without objection in accordance with house concurrent resolution 125, the chair declares the second session of the is 113th congress adjourned sine die.

host: could you tell the folks how one becomes the dean of the house? >> the first requirement is longevity. the dean of the house is the longest serving member in the house of representatives and he has the distinct honor on opening day on january 6 to swear in the incoming speaker of

the house which is a constitutional office. so even though the present speaker of the house is going to be the same one, he will still have to be sworn in again. that's where i come in. host: so for -- you'll do that job today to swear the speaker in. tell us a little bit about the longevity aspect of it. you come to this position taking over from representative dingell. tell us a little bit about taking over for him and the fact that he's a fellow michigander as well. guest: not only a fell michigan', his father and my father were good friends, and he and i are good friends. he was once my congressman and i have been talking with him about this job.

the important duty is of course on opening day where we swear in the incoming speaker of the house for the next session of congress. looking forward to it. host: you have been talking to him about the job? what kind of advice has been given to you about it? guest: well, he's given me some good advice. get your swearing-in statement together so that you can have the incoming speaker raise his right hand with you and say that he'll support the constitution of the united states and some other things. and we'll be all set. host: representative, you become the first african-american to assume this position. what does that mean to you? guest: well, i think it's a high honor under any circumstances,

but i think it's even more significant that all the members in the congress i am now the longest serving and the first african-american to hold that rank. i value it, and i'm very, very proud of it. host: with your new platform as dean after you do the ceremonial aspects of it, do you use your platform to talk about race issues? do you use your platform to talk about other issues near and dear to you? guest: absolutely. the dean of the house has a special recognition, it gives a little more added authority to the positions that i take, so i will be very carefully assessing what i say and what positions i

advocate. -- advocate as the new dean of the house. i follow a very distinguished member of congress, who was the dean for a long time himself, and he's stepping down and of course his wife is replacing him, debbie dingell, we are looking forward to working with her and the entire michigan delegation. host: representative as you become dean now do you get any privileges with that? do you get better office space? do you get your choice of committees? how does that work? guest: we have been looking to see if there are any perks laying around. guess what? we haven't found a one. host: you are the longest serving member now, and especially with this freshman class coming in, and because you hold the title of dean what advice would you give the freshmen class being the longest serving member?

guest: well, i would advise them to be very careful and thoughtful about the votes that they cast. and that they will want to realize that every vote they cast becomes a part of our congressional history. and we don't want them to get into a mood or into a group in which they will be saying later on that they were sorry that they were running in a direction that they really didn't support. host: joining us, the longest serving member of congress the dean of the house of representatives, representative john conyers from michigan. thank you, representative appreciate your time. guest: pleasure being with you. have a good new year.

[captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] >> there will be 45 african-americans in the house including two republicans, the first ever republican african-american woman to serve in the house. the senate will have two african-americans, republican tim scott of south carolina, and democrat cory booker of new jersey. and when the 114th congress opens on tuesday, michigan congressman, john conyers, will be the new house dean, taking over the role from long serving member john dingell. the 11th congress gavels in tuesday at noon eastern. we'll see the swearing-in of members and the election for house speaker. watch the house live right here on c-span. and the senate live on c-span2. and with the new congress, you'll have the best access, the most extensive coverage anywhere right here. track the g.o.p. as it leads on capitol hill and have your say as events unfold on tv, radio, and the web.

>> here are some of our featured programs you'll find this holiday weekend on the c-span networks. saturday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, from the explorer's club, apollo 16 astronaut charlie duke, the youngest man to walk on the moon. sunday evening at 8:00 on c. span a's "q&a," the president and c.e.o. of the national council of la raza, the largest national hispanic civil rights and advocacy group in the united states. on c-span2 stat night at 10:00 on book tv's afterwards, meet the press host chuck todd on president obama's performance in office. and sunday at noon eastern on in-depth, our three-hour conversation with talk show host and author, tavis smiley, with your smalls, emails, and tweets. on american history tv on c-span3, saturday at 8:00 p.m. eastern, opening day remarks by former house speakers tip o'neill, newt gingrich, dennis hastert, and nancy pelosi. on sunday night at 8:00 we'll hear from former senate jorlse,

rob byrd howard baker, bob dole, and. let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at 20 -626-3400. email us at comments at c-span.org. or send us a tweet at c-span #commnts. join the c-span conversation, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> in november, military veterans gathered at the u.s. navy memorial for a conference about their service. marine corps comma can't t.s. kelly was one of the speakers at the conference. -- come can't t.s. kelly was one of the speakers at the conference. >> we thank the navy memorial for that film as you saw from their lone sailor award. i give to you general kelly. [applause]

>> put that old cane away. it's tough getting old, let me tell you. but what happened was a few years back i had a really bad case of sciatica. so i went to the naval hospital and saw the doctor and he took an m.r.i. and said that's the worst good dam back i have ever seen in my life. what the hell have you been doing with yourself? i said, well i jumped out of an airplane a couple hundred times. i'm not sure that happened. then there were a few other things i did. i said i'm not asking you for that doctor. for god sakes, what can you do to fix it? he said i'm not sure we can. i said can we try? so i said i'll cut a deal with you, he said what's that, general? i said i do not want to be down

on the second deck with all of the admirals recuperating. i want to be up on the fifth deck with the young kids coming back from overseas in the orthopedic ward. probably one of the best decisions i ever made. they worked me like a tiger, never having a four star general to work before, they pushed me down the halls, they pushed me up the streets. they did everything to make me better. but the one thing they did which i really appreciated was they made me a cane. this is a special cane. there's only one like it in the world. and that's the one that the kids in the orthopedic ward at bethesda made for p.x. kell lee -- kell lee. i treasure it. let's get down to business.

i understand we have some of the dwight d. eisenhower people here today. is that correct? are they here? they were supposed to be. let me get my -- all people like me have to have all notes so we know what the hell we are talking about. let me get my notes out first and then i can sort of make some common sense. see if i can get them organized. i'm not sure i can. speak a little bit from the cuff. the day that i became commandant ronald wilson reagan officiated at the marine barracks, washington, d.c. and it was one of the most memorable days of my entire life. and as time went on, i became,

believe it or not very close to the president. very close in a number of ways. but that particular night i remember so well because as the baritone that we have, some of you have been there, the baritone sang god bless america, and i was sitting next to president reagan, he said to me, wow. he said, after that i'm not sure i can be -- i can make it. and i said, well, thank you, mr. president. i am the first speaker. and he said, well, we'll see about that. so then as the night progressed he gave me my first order. and i still have the memory of that order. let me share it with you because it kind of brought out a lot of the things which later melded into the what i think very close

reputation tsh-not reputation but friendship that i had with ronald wilson reagan. probably number one because he and i had a common love, and at that was common love of a horse. so believe it or not, at his suggestion the park police who you know have a mounted corps park police are here in washington, and i went through their 400-hour equestrian course. one broken leg and one broken rib later i fully graduated. to brag for a moment, at the international horse show if washington ronald reagan had me ride his favorite horse, jim crack. jim crack was a big tall, 16.3

thorough bread, black as the ace of spades, wonderful horse. so i got dold up in my dress blue, i took a literal license with the uniform, i had big tall black boots and spurs and all those goods things. but i have a picture to prove this by the way, but then i had -- i got a blue ribbon and i have a picture at home with that blue ribbon. it shows you the kind of relationship i had with our president. that first night he said, it was during that night he said -- kind of hard with the light coming back in your face. he gave my first order. and he said general, i want a message sent to our -- to every member of your corps. on behalf of all americans, i

wanted them to -- message sent to the memory of the corps every member of your corps in dress blues camouflage uniforms, or greens, tell them we are proud. tell them that we are grateful. tell them we stand behind them. and tell them they are the greatest. and that was the last words -- first words that ronald reagan gave to me the night of my appointment. let me start with some of the other things i want to talk about. it was probably mentioned -- not mentioned, my father was a -- an army major. he died in world war ii, and i have vivid memories, because i as a 1-year-old boy, fits

simmons general hospital in denver colorado, i was given a watch, ring, a casket, and a set of orders to escort my mother, who was with us, and my two sisters, from his place of his death to a resting place in boston massachusetts. if there are any bostonians here, let me tell you that if you go out to the stony brook reservation in boston, you will find a magnificent park. it's an athletic field with all of the facilities, and that was dedicated to my father. it was dedicated by the legislature of a great american named thomas p. "tip" o'neill. who dedicated that when i was a 14-year-old boy. i've got a lot of great memories. see the light back here is lousy. we'll have to get -- talking about world war ii, a book i

highly recommend for you is the one by brad shirley, i don't know if you heard of him world war ii, but he wrote a book on what happened on the first of november when we had the attack by the japanese at pearl harbor. in that book he has a forward by somebody who you do know now, and that's general p.x. kelly. i highly recommend it of course. but not necessarily the forward but the book. but the forward is interesting because what he did, he asked me to first, his son worked with me, he asked me to give his -- give them my observations of a young 14-year-old boy when he heard that the japanese had attacked pearl harbor. so what it is is the views of a

boy, a small boy and what he thought of world war ii. and what he saw of the things that happened. i became, as an example an air raid warden, believe that or not, at 15 years old. i had to go around to all of the local houses in our area and have them pull down their shades at night so the japanese or the germans couldn't see the fuse during the evening. so these were the crises -- crazy, not crazy, but we tore down all of the metal fences practically in the city to build ships. those things we had rationing of food, rationing of gasoline, rationing of all sorts of other commodities. so it was an all hands evolution. and a very, very tough period of time i might add. i fortunately had a wonderful, wonderful mother. i was in a very tough school in

boston. i don't know if you ever heard of public latin school, but public latin school in poss boston -- boston is the oldest public high school in america. 1635 it was founded. harvard university was founded in 1636 as a continuation school from public latin school. that school i was in at the time because i was helping my mother and my two sisters, i had to leave because the demands of that school, learning latin, french, and greek all at the same time by the way, the demands of that school were so intense that i -- to help my mother and my sisters, i had to move over to english high school, which was fine with me. and that's where i graduated. as the bio said, i became a student at villanova. villanova college.

and i was on a scholarship. let me tell you about that scholarship. it was kind of comical. my mother was the one who favored education. she had been a teacher. and she always insisted that her children go at least through college. because of the war and all those things that happened, the chances of my going to college were very slim. first of all we didn't have the money. second it was slim, the competition, the war was on. then one time when the g.i. bill was signed, it became apparent that you could go to college if you went and served in the military. and for equal time you got equal time in college. so my mother thought that was a good idea. i went down to the recruiting officer in washington, d.c., and my friend and i, we both -- it

was on a memorial day weekend, very important and and we didn't have computers, very important. it was on memorial day weekend. so on friday afternoon, paul xavier kelley put his right hand up and he became a united states marine. to be picked up later and moved later. went down to cape cod with my good friend, we had a little bit of a good weekend celebrating our new enlistment in the marine corps, then when i went home that next evening, my sister was waiting for me and she screamed at me. where have you been! and i said, none of your damn business. and she said, none of my business listen dummy, you have just been the recipient of a full four-year scholarship tuition, boogs room and board,

to any catholic college in america. and i said oh, shit. i said i just signed up in the marine corps. let's fast forward. it's now monday, and paul xavier kelley is sitting on the doorstep of the recruiting office. and the recruiting officer said what do you want? i'd like to talk to the recruiting officer. what's your business? i tried to explain but he didn't listen to me. but the recruiting officer walked by, and said what do you want? i said, well, remember, i said no computers, so my record was still there. in the recruiting office. so i said, i explained my problem. and he sat me down and said, young man, i'm going to give you some advice. he said, go to college. he said, that's the best advice. but when you do, he said i have

one favor. he said, i ask that you would please, please take a look at the marine corps procurement office of procurement opportunities that might be there and see if one of them fits your desire. fast forward. i did. the day i left i became commandant. the next day i sat in the commandant's desk and i wrote a letter and i wrote a letter to that recruiting officer. and i said, you have no reason to remember me, but i've got a lot of reasons to remember you. and i told him the story about how he as one individual changed my entire life by making me a special case. i think that's -- then i invited him to be the guest of honor at a parade at th and i. he he came down. let me tell you ladies and gentlemen, that was one of the proudest moments of my life. my message is simply this. that there are all sorts of

opportunities, but there are all sorts of reasons, sometime when a young boy has a problem, listen to him. listen to him. i had a theory in -- as a marine corps officer, that i wanted to talk, and i did, on most occasions, i wanted to talk to every -- two enlisted men at least once a day. and when i was -- walked by them in the streets, i would say how you doing? and we'd sit and chat just to find out how they were doing. back to business, it became quite obvious that for some reason the marine corps may not have wanted me. to say that i have served tours in the army, the navy, the air force, and then certainly i served a very, very pleasant -- very unpleasant tour because of

the physical demands with the royal marines in england. and during that tour i became the recipient of a coveted green beret and became a green beret. but the other thing is that i also commanded for the first time in the history of the royal marines, commanded a royal marine unit in singapore, borneo and malaya. which was kind of a rather unusual track for a young marine from the nsment so the point i'm making is, there's no limitations. things i did in my life, in many cases, life threatening, jumping out of airplanes, bubbling out of submerged submarines. things that really were dangerous and really were life threatening. but they were the things were really valuable to keep the process going. i command a force reconnaissance company for two years. believe me jumped out of a lot of planes.

some of you may have never heard of the fulton sky-hook system. anybody here heard of that? somebody's shaking their head. it's fulton was actually designed by a relative son, i believe, grandson, of robert fulton of steamboat fame. and what it was was when you had a downed pilot, a friendly aircraft came over dropped a big bundle of rope, 2009, and it had if there a parachute -- not a parachute, but a balloon. so you inflated the balloon and you hooked it on and hooked it on to you and it went up about several hundred feet, and then the airplane would come over and had a hook that snapped. when it hit the line it snapped and pulled you off the ground 200 feet. and then there were two people

in the airplane that put the lynn on a win much and wheeled you in. -- winch and wheeled you in. the next individual was a navy coreman and unfortunately the line sheared and he dropped 250 feet. and there was no bouncing. with the army i thought. i was one of the senior instructors, one of my junior instructors at the time was a young major in the army named colin powell, and he and i became very, very close friends. but that was a wonderful tour. the navy tour, for those of you who are interested and may want to go navy, was interesting. i was extremely disappointed. i did not want to go in the navy .

at the time. but i got a set of orders to a heavy cruiser. a grand new heavy cruiser. u.s.s. salem. first cruise. boston naval shipyard. i walked down the peer and i looked up tsh-pier and i looked up at this big beautiful ship. more guns on it than you have ever seen in your life. went aboard. it was one of the most pleasant tours i have ever had. very seriously. in the end, i became a qualified surface warfare officer. now, we were the sixth fleet command in the mediterranean and we had a hardship tour in france which was very hard. near nice. that was our homeport. then we would go over to venice once in a while. then we had a very sad occasion

which happened some people will remember we he had a huge earthquake in greece. and we were the first ship to arrive to help the poor people who had been suffering from the earthquake. and i'll tell you, it was a disaster. in fact, the first night i was on the ground with a sleeping bag, and we had some tremors come up right at me, and i ended up five feet in the ground. and tsh-so woo had tsh-we brought in some -- we brought in some protective gear, for the injured and older people. and we put them in tents. and took very good care of them. one morning when i woke up, the tents were not gone but they were now occupied by the police.

the police had thrown the support people out of the tents and then gone in themselves. so i had a cook from rhode island, and i told him, i said, get those police out of that tent. so the lance corporal went over and got the people out of the tent. but then he was the cook. so he set up a chow line, people would walkthrough, and as the police came through, pardon my english now, he said to them there you are your asshole. well, they thought that was a term of endearment. he so from then on everybody was calling everybody hi, asshole, hi asshole. but the most humorous thing of all was as we left and we took

all of the small boats going back to the salem, all the people hundreds of people, hundreds, on the quay, saying goodbye to us and yelling asshole! asshole! so i often wondered from the future generations exactly whatever happened for the future. that too, with -- tour with the navy was absolutely delight futh. the tour with the air force was at the air war college. the air war college, i'm going to brag for a moment, the air war college was one prize, and it's an award by the national geographic association for the best thesis. i'm proud to say that i won that that year. it was one of those things where you can fool all the people all the time. the career has been extimely

fine. i was wondering, one of the things i wanted to talk about was i have been working with the eisenhower memorial commission helping them get through all the hurdles. as you have heard i was the chairman of the american battle monuments commission, which one of the greatest positions that i ever had. and i can always remember the day of dedication of world war ii and i was standing there and then i had to move up, i was the nirs speaker. -- first speaker. i had to move up and deliver the world war ii memorial to the president of the united states. and i can remember the words and i stood there, mr. president, it is my highest honor to present to you and the people of america

the national world war ii memorial. that was one of my highest honors ever. all i could think of was my father, the army major, who died on active duty, and all the others and one of the strange things that happened with that memorial, to brag for a moment, believe it or not we were ahead of schedule and under budget. now, tell me anything else in washington d.c., that ever has been ahead of schedule and under budget. not many. in the meeting we had, i said, well, who owns it now? and they said, you do. i said i to? i said, it's opened. so i opened it many months ahead of time because we couldn't get all the people from all the over world that came for the dedication so i just took a chance and i opened it up. and the first person to come

through the gate was persons, was a woman with a man in a wheelchair. and i went over and i chatted with her. and i said how are you doing, ma'am? and she said, my husband did something today that i have never seen him do before. and that as we chatted she told me about the career, how he went overseas, how he was wounded, how he did this and how he did that. then i brought her back, i said what did he do today? she said he cried. and that was kind of emotion that world war ii the largest ticketed event in the history of washington. one of the funny sidebars, not so funny, was when the day of dedication the president's team

came down to look at the area, the advance party, and they didn't like the one particular area because what they wanted was to change it so when the president spoke, the bust of lincoln, in his area was showing so it would show lincoln and the president. and i said you can't do that. and they said, well, we can. we'll go up and see mr. so and so up in the white house. i said you can go up and see mr. so and so in the white house, but it's not going to happen. i'll tell you why. i said because when you move those chairs, you have just moved 50, 50 gold star widows of a seat and i am not going to tolerate that. so they backed off quite frankly. [applause]

you got the bulk probably of what i have done in my lifetime. which isn't probably much. my wife will tell you. but i have been very, very lucky. we have one daughter. who is working with the eisenhower commission. i did have something i wanted to show you, it's kind of a tsh-i wanted to show you two things. i got caught by surprise being walked down the aisle here. the other day i attended a funeral. and i must tell you that fort myer the funerals are not only daily, they are stacked up. but this one to me was a very special one. it happened to be an air force

who i knew very, very well. his name was jim mcnortheasterny. anybody here know jim mack americany? tshtsh mcnearney. you should. he was one of the great heroes of the vietnam war. several air force crosses. tremendous tremendous career. a third generation west pointer. with a great, great reputation. he and i were students together at harvard. i got to know him very, very well and there's nobody in this country i respected more than jim. he passed away. and the reason i mentioned is because today, today he's being buried at west point. and sad part, not sad but almost

emotional part is that in the same plot will be his mother and father, and his grandfather and grandmother. and jim mcnortheasterny, who pioneered, who pioneered what we did with the american air museum in great britain, which people some people don't understand about the war that happened in great britain, and i'll talk about that for a moment but jim was so effective that the queen gave him, two years ago, the highest award any american has ever gotten. so jim ncnearney, i'd say god bless you, god bless you, jim. probably one of the greatest military officers i have ever known in my entire life. going back for a little while.

my career has been a wonderful career in many ways. all because of the young people the young people that served under me. i can't tell you the suffing that we had when i was a young -- suffering we had when i was a young lieutenant, right after world war ii more or less, and a marine enlisted, you had a wooden box to put your clothes in, had you a steel bunk, and sometimes they were two and three high, nobody had a car. nobody had a car. suddenly there they were. as enlisted marines wonderful, wonderful people, but they took it and took it very, very well. they had no way of getting off the base except by buses. they had nowhere to put in their families except in hotels at

great expense to themselves. they were tough times. it was a time when harry truman changed the laws and said that now black americans, black americans were now full-timers. i thought, i had some real south boys as squad leaders, i wonder how that's going to work? it worked the day it happened. we never batted an eye. it never changed anything in the corps. in fact, the corps was better because we had social tolerance. i always tell people that, young people particularly, there are things you can do that can make a difference. some of them are small. i'm going to tell you about a couple that i did. when i came to washington as the assistant commandant, there were

two festering issues. one was the marine corps marathon. for those of you who don't know, the marine corps marathon was put together by a very small group of reserve officers, period. they did all the work. they did all of the things that was supposed to be done. but now it got to be too big to handle. so the only answer was, it had to die. so i held a meeting. held a meeting. all people interested in the marathon. and i established two prerequisites. i said, a all young marines supporting the marathon had to be volunteers. and that was fair. and all funds all funds used in the marathon could not be appropriated funds. in other words, they could not

be taxpayers' money. and we were just ready to almost shut the door on the marathon when i looked over and i saw lieutenant kohl member that i happened to know very well who was a marathon runner. and i said, dick, what do you think? and he thought for a minute because he became the commandant at quantico, he said i'll take both. so he took both. he took all of the responsibility for the marine corps marathon and now wonderful, wonderful marathon that you see today would not have been possible without his intervention. you can make differences. you can make differences. there was also an opportunity when we were looking for a new replacement for our medium lift helicopter. i had two meetings, trying toe

get a handle on it. we looked at every damn helicopter in the world. we still couldn't come to grips. we had a meeting set up with secretary john lehman. i happened to be over on the hill that morning and i came back from the meeting and there was nobody there. i said where's the meeting? the secretary canceled it. i said why? john heard my voice outside and he said, come in here, you two. so we walked in. he said, sit down. he said, i have been talking to hans marks, who happened to be very influential in the air force, he said in the future of helicopters is in tiltrotor, that's the way we are going. i'm going to bring the marine corps into the 21st century on the leading edge of technology. and i saluted my secretary and said, yes, sir.

then we had to name the new plane. and i'll just tell you without further -- it was the osprey. so it took john lehman to actually put together the osprey. and he was the first one. the army had tried a tiltrotor but it failed. so -- i think i have talked long enough now. if we got time for questions, i did have one thing i want to share with you. i wanted to basically mention as i did ask if the people from the eisenhower memorial were there. i guess they are not. are they? ok. good. years ago -- i rummaged through all of my old files from time to time to see how screwed up i

really was. i found a pamphlet and it was called, the return of the straight arrow. and it came from a very, very prestigious firm in new york. and what it discussed was, now there are some people who are stray arrows. so i can give you some of the names names you would know almost immediately in many, many cases, and some maybe you wouldn't. daniel webster, elliott necessary -- elliottness -- eliot ness, people who were straight arrows and great reputations. i came one -- on one that i

focused on. dwight david eisenhower. and i said, you know, that's true. dwight david eisenhower. but then i went on, i went on and when i focused on immediately, it was stan "the man" musial. straight arrow. right under him was general p.x. kelley. that straight arrow magazine, but there you are. let's see if we have any questions that you'd like to ask. zip the general. >> general, thank you very much for your comments. if you could just clarify for a moment. i don't know if i understood

correctly, but while you were commandant of the marine corps was it a lesser command position. you talked to every enlisted man? that's beautiful. >> no, i talked to all enlisted men as i saw them walk down the street and saw them. i didn't talk to them by -- in formation. i talked to every enlisted man that i could have a personal conversation with. >> just follow up, quick question it's a very beautiful gesture on your part. is it something that you learned as you were growing up, others showing that same interest in you? >> it was something inherent in me. that's the way i felt. they were working and working hard. nobody paid attention to them. just stop them on the street corner and say, how are you doing? i also, not that -- i changed the bulletin boards and put them in the men's room.

because i know that was one place they always had to go. i put them right over the urinials. so they had good fresh information in the men's room. but you had to do little things like that to let them know. my chaplain from vietnam did a little story on me, he brought up one point. i was involved in some of the most serious fights in vietnam. i could name them but i'd probably bore you. one night by accident i always would walk the lines and talk to the young kids, particularly if we had a casualty. because they didn't have the kind of background, and they were young, and to just lose

your best friend was something monumental. but one night i was walking, i was sitting in the edge of the foxhole and foot kicked the dirt, one of them said to me, general, you don't have your weapon. i don't know why i said it but i said why do i need a weapon? i got you to protect me. and they'll never get by you. from then on everybody thought that was great. the general was going to rely on us. but those are little things that you do just to sort of personalize. the other morning, show you how current things can be, the other morning i had a -- i was shaving , not that you care, i do once in a while. the telephone rang.

and a little squeaky voice obviously from a young lady, asked if general kelley was there, yes speaking. and she gave me her name but i didn't quite focus on it. and she said in my school we can get a credit if any member of your family got a purple heart. my heart went in my mouth. because her grandfather was a gunnery sergeant who i watched get killed. and who -- navy cross. very serious battle that general westmoreland said, probably one of the most serious battles in vietnam. i was with him when he got killed. here was this little girl asking for his identity, or his purple

heart. and then i called his mother -- called his wife, had her grandmother, and chatted with her. i can remember the day i awarded the medal to the wife, to all beautiful gorgeous women with two beautiful small boys and who i at the time said would you like to read the citation? i got to it and i had a flashback that i couldn't stop. i had to take and give it back to him. i could not finish that citation. because i had watched him die. so those are the kind of memories that you have. then the others -- i'll bore you with a couple of stories. am i boring you now? you want to hear more?

the vietnam memorial which i think a lot of you have been to there's one name on there named john "bean" chinaee. you can ask me who is that? .in an operation that was very vicious, we finally overcame the enemy, so to speak. we were moving to a moot -- a new position and john was my point man. meaning he was guy out front. and suddenly, there was an explosion. i saw john drop and i ran over