O’Callaghan praised in Senate

Suzanne Struglinski

Monday, March 15, 2004 | 11:17 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., honored the life of Gov. Mike O'Callaghan on the Senate floor Thursday and Friday, calling him a "true American patriot and hero."

"Governor O'Callaghan died last Friday morning doing what he did each and every morning of his life: attending daily Mass before he went to work at the Las Vegas Sun," Daschle said. "He also fought for the poor and the disenfranchised -- from Korea to Nicaragua to Nevada -- each and every day of his life."

Daschle told a story of when O'Callaghan visited Nicaragua in 1996 to observe the first elections that would mark a peaceful transition between democratically elected presidents. O'Callaghan went to the Honduran border to watch the elections.

"He had to go there in a battered truck over rained-out roads because, he said, these were his people whom he had gotten to know in the 1980s, and he wanted to be with them as they celebrated the democracy they had earned," Daschle said.

He spoke of O'Callaghan's distinguished military and political career. Daschle nominated O'Callaghan to the Veterans Disability Benefits Commission in January, based on Sen. Harry Reid's, D-Nev., recommendation. The commission will examine federal benefits to disabled veterans and families of military personnel killed during their service.

"While we are saddened by the loss of Mike O'Callaghan, we can take comfort in the knowledge that his generosity of spirit, his strength of character, and his devotion to his state and country will not soon be forgotten, and that his values and commitment to public service live on in our colleague, and his close friend, Harry Reid," Daschle said, according to the Congressional Record.

"He also fought for the poor and the disenfranchised -- from Korea to Nicaragua to Nevada -- each and every day of his life."