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140 One Last Veterans Day Salute I WENT OFF to bed on Election Night, tired, a bit sad, but comforted in another bit of knowledge that comes with experience: the sun will rise again. It did, of course, and I awoke surrounded by a loving family, and devoted friends started telephoning me before we poured the first cup of post-election coffee on Wednesday morning. I won’t kid you—an election loss means the painful realization that some people who may have been friends in past years have fallen away for whatever reason, or perhaps they weren’t inspired to go to the polls. But I’m not going to brood or spend much time second-guessing the voters, because what’s done is done. Besides, our nation is facing too many challenges to spend a moment fretting about a personal setback, which may not turn out to be a setback at all; many of the callers in the days after the election reminded me that multiple doors open when one familiar door closes behind you. The Congressional Research Service reported that upon adjournment of the 111th Congress, I would mark 12,421 days in the U.S. House of Representatives, making me the second-longest-serving member of Congress—senators or representatives —since Missouri statehood. The longest tenure of House service belonged to Clarence Cannon, whose forty-one years in Congress are unlikely to be rivaled. And I managed to serve two more days than the third-longest-serving Missouri congressman, my mentor Richard Bolling of Kansas City. In the days after the election, one former House colleague called to express concern that the Tuesday Tsunami of 2010 meant a major loss of institutional memory in Congress. That was particularly true on the Armed Services Committee , where most of the Democratic top row—the most senior members—was cleaned out. My reply is, that’s why we have history books, and we must study our history and learn from it. During the days immediately after the election, there wasn’t much time to rest and regroup because the work of Congress continued, including moving out soon-to-be-former members. I was blessed that while there was immediate demand to vacate my spacious office in the Rayburn Building with its beautiful view of the Capitol, I was allowed by administrators to keep working from the O n e L a s t V e t e r a n s D a y s a L u t e 141 considerably smaller but nobly named Truman Room in the building named for the Missouri president’s favorite House Speaker, Sam Rayburn of Texas. Once again, history was atop my agenda: my staff gathered pictures, files, and memorabilia from thirty-four years in office, most of it bound for the archives of the State Historical Society of Missouri at my alma mater in Columbia. One of the hardest items to take down was a print of the unfinished portrait of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was being painted when the president collapsed and subsequently died on April 12, 1945, at the Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia. It wasn’t physically difficult to move, but that portrait is of great personal significance to me not only because Franklin Roosevelt was an outstanding president, perhaps our greatest president, but also because he was a visionary long before his White House years in establishing the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation. On November 11, 2010, my first appearances since the election consisted of four Veterans Day speeches across the district, in Jefferson City, Tipton, Lexington, and Wellington. I told all of my audiences they must not just think of the men and women who serve in uniform but also should thank them at every opportunity. The day’s first appearance was particularly meaningful to me because it was the twenty-fourth consecutive year I was honored to keynote the Lincoln University ROTC Veterans Day breakfast in Jefferson City. I looked not just into the eyes of silver-haired veterans who had served so well, but also into the hopeful faces of young ROTC cadets soon to be commissioned and deployed. I told the young men and women preparing for lives of military service that on Veterans Day, we give thanks to those who now serve and to those who have served in the past. We give thanks for the families whose support made possible that service. We honor and remember those who...

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