Thursday, March 10, 2011

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Floor Statement in Memory of Kate Puzey
Remarks as Delivered on the Senate Floor

Madam President, I rise to acknowledge the second anniversary of a tragic event that happened on March 11, 2009, in the nation of Benin in Africa. On that tragic day, a young lady by the name of Kate Puzey was tragically murdered in her sleep in her house at night.

Kate Puzey was a Peace Corps volunteer from Georgia, who went to Benin with all the dreams, hopes and aspirations of the program John F. Kennedy created over a half century ago. She had served there for months. She was teaching young African children. She was sharing wisdom. She was sharing knowledge. She was sharing her love of mankind. She was representing the United States in the way the Peace Corps intended it.

Unfortunately, her life was lost. I did not know Kate Puzey before her death. I only know her after her death. But I know her through her parents, through her schoolmates, and through her fellow Peace Corps volunteers in Africa who told me the story of Kate Puzey, and also, tragically, stories of other Peace Corps volunteers who have lost their lives or have sacrificed in the service of our country.

Tomorrow night, at 6:30, on the steps of the Capitol, there will be a candlelight vigil, acknowledging the second year anniversary of the death of Kate Puzey. Kate's mother will be here, as well as Peace Corps volunteers, as well as people from the Peace Corps organization. It will be a solemn moment, but it will also be a very sacred moment.

As the ranking member of the Africa Subcommittee, I have traveled to Africa on a number of occasions, and I have been in a number of African countries. On each visit, I arrange either a breakfast or a lunch, where I host the Peace Corps volunteers from the United States in that country.

Without exception, and in every case, these are the finest of Americans.

Just 2 years ago, when I was in Tanzania, I met a couple--73 and 72 years old--who in their retirement decided they wanted to give back and help their country and serve their mankind. They volunteered to go to Tanzania and build a library where there was not even a library, a book or a school, and they built it.

In Kenya, I visited with young people who went to Kenya to help carry the message of democracy, to help share, in the terrible slum of Kibera, the promise and hope of education, of good nutrition, of knowledge, of hard work, and of democracy.

We as a country are blessed to have men and women who serve us in many capacities--those who may serve in the House or the Senate, those who serve in the branches of the military overseas in harm's way--but equal to their service is the service of our Peace Corps volunteers. Kate Puzey is an example of what those Peace Corps volunteers do--at its height.

When I attended her funeral, I sat and listened, for over 2 hours, to her fellow volunteers, her former classmates tell about the Kate Puzey they knew: the academic genius, the committed volunteer, the person who loved life and loved people and wanted to share that love wherever she could.

The volunteers in Benin told of her countless sacrifices to help young people and children in their troubled land, in their difficult country, to understand better their life's future and to not look to poverty as a lifetime of shackles but to look to opportunity as a lifetime of hope.

Tomorrow night, when the vigil takes place on the steps of the Capitol, I will not be here, unfortunately, but I will be saying a special prayer for the life of Kate Puzey, for her family, and for what she and all volunteers who have sacrificed in the Peace Corps have done for the United States of America, and, better than that, for mankind.

We have many great people to be thankful for in this world, but tomorrow, at 6:30 p.m., on the steps of the Capitol, there will be a pause to recognize the life, the legacy, and the sacrifice of Kate Puzey and I will be there in spirit and I will be with her in prayer.