Statement on Introduced Bill: Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Act of 2006 (S.3744)
By Senator Richard Durbin (D-Ill.)

By Mr. DURBIN (for himself and Mr. COLEMAN):

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am a lucky politician, a fortunate soul. I am lucky that early in my political life, I met two men who had a dramatic impact on me and on my decision to seek public office and to be involved in public service. The first was a Senator from Illinois named Paul Douglas who served from 1948 to 1966 and decided in the year 1966 to hire a college intern named DURBIN from East St. Louis, IL, who was going to school at Georgetown University. That was the first time I ever walked into a Senate office building, and I tell you, I was swept away by the experience. I knew at that time that I wanted to be a part of the excitement of this life on Capitol Hill and government, and I didn't know how I would ever have a chance to do it. I never dreamed I would run for office. But Paul Douglas, my first mentor in public service and political office, was there at the right moment in my life to inspire me to pursue at least some aspect of public service.

He introduced me to a fellow named Paul Simon who later served as the U.S. Senator from Illinois. Paul was elected in 1984 and served until 1996. During that 12-year period of time, I was a Member of the House of Representatives. For many years before, Paul Simon had been my closest friend and mentor in politics. He gave me my first job out of law school, when my wife Loretta and I packed everything we owned in a very small truck. She took the baby on a plane to fly to Springfield, IL, and I drove the truck out with our dog sitting in the front seat of my U-Haul truck with me and took my first job working for then Lieutenant Governor Paul Simon.

I was lucky. I learned the craft of politics from Paul Simon. I saw in his public service, in his public life, how good this job can be and how important it can be if you realize you need to be driven by some basic principles. Paul Simon used to say--and I have heard the speech so many times; I have even given it--that politics is about two things. First, people expect you to be honest, and I think he meant beyond dollar honesty--issue honesty; people expect you to tell them what you really believe rather than try to hide what your beliefs might be in some political double-talk.

The second thing Paul Simon says is that politics is about helping the helpless. He believed there is some mission to this. He was a son of a Lutheran minister and a proud Christian but reached across to other denominations of religions for his own inspiration. He believed that helping the helpless was an important part of government responsibility.

Mr. President, today I am going to introduce legislation with Senator NORM COLEMAN of Minnesota. It is legislation that reflects the vision of Senator Paul Simon.

After the terrible attack of September 11, 2001, Paul Simon, typical of his outlook on the world, decided that he could imagine a more peaceful world, even in that time of great upheaval. He talked about promoting peace and security through understanding and global awareness. Specifically, he began to lay out a path to a United States that would be populated by Americans who have been abroad and have a personal connection to another part of the world. His vision was to help prepare a generation with greater cultural competence and real life experience in societies unlike our own.

In the months before his untimely death, Senator Paul Simon came back to Washington to talk to me and his former colleagues in the Senate about the need to strengthen this country's international understanding. As a direct result of his work, Congress established the Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Commission to develop the framework for an international study abroad program for America's college students. I was honored to serve on this bipartisan Lincoln Commission.

Late last year, the Commission published its report recommending the Congress establish a study abroad program for undergraduate students that would help build this global awareness and international understanding. It is a privilege for me to introduce legislation based on the recommendations of this Commission.

Paul Simon, like so many committed to strengthening our ability to lead by investing in the education of young people, struggled with the question of how America could lead while so few of our citizens have an appropriate knowledge and understanding of the world outside of our borders. The United States is a military and economic superpower, yet it is continuously threatened by a serious lack of international competence in an age of growing globalization. When you travel overseas, you cannot help but be struck by the fact that people in other countries know so much more about us than we know about them.

Our lack of world awareness is now seen as a national liability. The challenges we face as Americans are increasingly global in nature, and our youth must be well prepared for its future. Our national security, international economic competitiveness, and diplomatic efforts in working toward a peaceful society rest on our global competence and ability to appreciate language and culture throughout the world.

Today I joined a number of our colleagues who walked across the Rotunda over to the House of Representatives for a joint meeting of Congress where the Prime Minister of Iraq, Mr. al-Maliki, spoke to us. He spoke in inspiring terms about his goals for Iraq, an Iraq that was based on democratic principles, an Iraq that was based on freedom, an Iraq that was free of terrorism.

The United States has made a major investment in that effort. We are now in the fourth year of a war, a war that has claimed over 2,569 American lives, including 102 brave soldiers from my home State of Illinois. Over 20,000 of our soldiers have returned with serious injuries--2,000 of those with brain injuries and lives that will be compromised and more challenging because they agreed to stand and serve and fight for America and they went to Iraq and paid a heavy price.

We have spent some $320 billion of American treasure on the war in Iraq, and we continue to spend, by estimate, $3 billion every single week on Iraq, realizing that the end is not near and there is no end in sight. We hope our troops will start to come home soon, but there is no indication they will.

Yet, the best military leaders in America, when they sit face to face with us here in private meetings, tell us the same thing we have heard from many members of this administration. We will not win in Iraq a military victory. The victory ultimately has to be a political victory, a victory where we convince the Iraqi people that this is a far better course to follow, to move toward self-governance and democracy, freedom and free markets, and to move away from the days of dictatorships and the thinking that led people to a divisive moment in their lives. We need to move away from that.

It suggests, even with the strongest military in the world, giving it their best efforts every single minute of every single day, the ultimate answer in Iraq and so many other countries is not a military answer. It is an answer that brings together political and economic elements that ultimately will spell the success of that nation.

The capacity of the United States to lead in the 21st century, not just in Iraq but all over the world, demands that we school new generations of American citizens who understand the cultural and social realities beyond what they have experienced here at home. Senator Simon understood this. He saw the United States as a large community, part of an even larger world family. When he saw signs that read, ``God bless America,'' Paul Simon used to say, ``I wish they would read `God bless America and the rest of the world.' ''

Senator Simon was a great public servant. His service in Congress was exemplary. He was a man with an intrinsic sense of justice and passion for the public good. His deep convictions were matched by a genuine zeal for the work he did here in Washington and back in Illinois.

When he retired from the Senate, there was a little ceremony on the floor of the Senate, the likes of which this Chamber has never seen. The decision was made that since Paul Simon always wore a bow tie, that on one given day all of the Senators would come to the floor wearing bow ties. To Paul's surprise, he walked in here to find so many of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle saluting his retirement by wearing his trademark bow tie.

After he retired from the Senate, Paul Simon carried his vision and his energy for leadership back to Southern Illinois University, founding the Public Policy Institute at that university in Carbondale, IL. In that role, he trained future generations to understand the values he fought for his entire life.

The Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Fellowship Program, which Paul Simon inspired, is designed to encourage and support the experience of studying overseas in countries whose people, culture, language, government, and religion might be very different from ours. The bill I am introducing today with Senator Coleman would create a program that encourages nontraditional students to spend part of their undergraduate careers in nontraditional study abroad destinations. It is said you never understand a country until you visit it and you never appreciate your home until you leave it. The program we envision provides direct fellowships to students but also provides financial incentives to colleges and universities to make internal policy changes that make it easier for students to study abroad.

We believe it is the institutional change that will allow the U.S. to sustain a steady growth in the number of students who experience this learning abroad. As we become a nation whose citizens have studied in other countries, we will become more understanding of the rest of the world and they will come to know us better.

We learned this with the Peace Corps. As I travel around the world, I never cease to be amazed at the impact which the Peace Corps has had on countries, on small villages, and on people. I can recall visiting Nepal. I went to Nepal with a former colleague from the home State of the Presiding Officer, Oklahoma, Mike Synar. We went to a tiny little village way up in the mountains outside of Kathmandu. After we trekked up there at high altitudes, out of breath, we came to this little village and all of the people were there. They had the third eye on their head. There were garlands of flowers around their necks. They were dressed in the best clothes they had, and offered us food. And as we sat down, they asked us if we knew Paul Jones, from Pittsburgh, PA.

Of course, we didn't. But we didn't want to say that right off. We said, ``Who was he?'

`Well, you must know him. He was our Peace Corps volunteer. He was here for 2 years. He made such a difference in this village. You must know Paul.''

I made up the name, but it goes to show you that the efforts and involvement of Americans overseas not only will help people there but will help those who live through the experience. For so many Peace Corps volunteers that I met, it was a transformative moment, to serve in that Peace Corps at that moment in their life and to go through that experience.

Sending more American students for that overseas experience will not only help those students, it will help others around the world to see who we are. Think of the battle of images going on in the world today even as we speak, images of America that are terrible, images that are distorted, that are being shown to people around the world every day. And they say this is what America looks like when in fact it isn't even close to the truth.

We can become a nation where we use our public education system to expand not only the reach of America's message, but the experience of Americans in other countries. I can think of no more appropriate tribute to honor Paul Simon, a great statesman himself, than to establish this study abroad program.

In the weeks before Senator Simon's death, Senator Simon wrote the following:

A nation cannot drift into greatness. We must dream and we must be willing to make small sacrifices to achieve those dreams. If I want to improve my home, I must sacrifice a little. If we want to improve our Nation and the world, we must be willing to sacrifice a little. This major national initiative ..... can lift our vision and responsiveness to the rest of the world. Those who read these lines need to do more than nod in agreement [Paul Simon wrote.] This is a battle for understanding that you must help wage.

I ask my colleagues to join Senator Coleman and myself in this bipartisan legislation to help keep alive Senator Paul Simon's vision for a culturally aware and a better world.