The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“TRIBUTE TO DR. FREDERICK BURKLE” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S3535-S3537 on June 7, 2016.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
TRIBUTE TO DR. FREDERICK BURKLE
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, one of the formative parts of my life was being a student at Saint Michael's College in Vermont. It was especially so because of the people I met there. One of my most memorable classmates is Dr. Frederick Burkle.
Skip Burkle was one who cared greatly about what he was learning and showed moral leadership even then. As students, we both lived in dorms that resembled World War II-era barracks. Fortunately, the living conditions for students at Saint Michael's have improved since then.
Last month, now-Dr. Burkle, spoke at Saint Michael's College giving the commencement address. Everyone who was there actually listened to a man who spoke of his own background. He spoke also to the moral compass he has developed both in school and since in the military and in his scientific work.
So much could be said about his career. I agree when he said, ``My humanitarian work was the most meaningful I've ever done.'' That makes so much sense because few people I have ever known have begun to approach his life as a humanitarian.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that his speech to the graduating class be printed in the Record because I want those beyond Saint Michael's College to read what an outstanding person has said.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Saint Michael's College Commencement Address
Colchester, Vermont: May 15, 2016
frederick m. burkle, jr., md, mph
physician, scholar, humanitarian
Greetings to you all!
There are many reasons to celebrate this day. This graduation is a milestone for you and your entire family.
Saint Michael's also needs to be celebrated and commended. As an academic, I do not know of any other college or university this year, or in recent memory, that has shown both the insight and courage to declare ``Service to Others'' as the theme of graduation. Only at Saint Mikes! . . . I'm not surprised!
The implications of this decision are many and must be applauded . . . Most importantly it brings great hope and wisdom for the future of this generation and those that follow . . . .
I have been asked to speak to you on what in my life and college experiences influenced my humanitarian career. My first concern when asked was: How does someone who graduated in 1961, 55 years ago, tell his story to the class of 2016? .
. . .
Let's give it a try
In truth, if you knew me in high school you would have voted me the ``least likely graduate to ever give a commencement address.'' . . .
I attended an all male Catholic High School in Southern Connecticut. I was painfully shy, occasionally stuttered, was easily embarrassed, struggled to be an average student, and was hopelessly burdened by what is known today as severe dyslexia. I only began to read in the 5th grade.
My Father, emphatically and loudly said ``No'' to the idea of college. He had labeled me a ``lazy dreamer'' . . . so to him college was a waste of good money. You would agree . . . I was certainly not a prize academic prospect!
So here I am . . . and now I've got to explain to you how I got onto this stage as a Commencement speaker.
I would not be here today without the help of some very unselfish people . . . I call them my own personal humanitarians . . . we all have them.
Not going to college was a serious blow I could not live with. For years I had held on to an otherwise quite impossible and secret dream of being a physician. A dream which simply arose many years before from viewing very early Life Magazine photos of doctors treating starving children in an African jungle hospital.
Having been born 2 years before WWII, all my life was one war after another with equally dire photos of both World War II and Korean War casualties. And soon after, during high school, emerged my generation's war . . . in a strange and unheard of country named Viet Nam . . . a war which actually began to build up as early as 1954.
My story, in great part, is a love story. I met an equally shy girl when she was 13 and I was the older man of 14. We went steady during high school and secretly dreamed of our future together. With College off the table the military draft seemed inevitable. She urged me to plead my case to the High School Academic Dean, a stern gray haired Brother of Holy Cross, to both loan me the application fee and forward a decent recommendation. I was shaking in my boots. He silently pondered the circumstances yet nodded his head and agreed to accept the personal risk despite the potential anger of my Father . . .
The very next day there was a check waiting for me!
There were others . . . while working as an orderly in a local hospital I met two very caring physicians. They embodied everything I wanted to be. They introduced me to a small French Catholic Liberal Arts College named St. Michaels in rural Vermont that I never heard of. Both were WWII veterans who attended St. Mike's and then medical school on the GI Bill. Despite their busy schedules they took time to counsel and encourage, spoke highly of the quality of the education but also cautioned that the academic experience would demand much more.
St. Mike's was the only place I applied. With luck, I was accepted. My girl friend's parents, not my own, took me to campus . . . There was no turning back!
Falling in love with St. Mike's was a little slower and not nearly as romantic! Matriculation at St. Mike's was a shock .
. . and at first a disappointment. Maybe my Father was right
. . . Will I fail and embarrass myself once again?
From the outset, the St. Mike's academic faculty made it clear that everyone on campus was required to take 4 years of liberal arts. This included a long list of the world's literature, history, arts and philosophy from the beginning of written time. This included a comparative study of all religions, and a compelling semester of logic that forced us to deliberate the philosophical ``how'' and ``why'' problems that stressed the minds of every adolescent, like me, whose brain had not yet matured . . .
It took me 3 trips to the bookstore to carry all the required reading back to the small shared room in a former WWII poorly heated wooden barracks that once stood where we are today.
We desperately asked why such torture was necessary. I'm to be a scientist. Why did I have to study the liberal arts? I pleaded . . . something must be wrong! With my reading disability, my anxiety level was palpable to everyone.
The science faculty made it quite clear that to pass the rigorous requirements for recommendation to graduate school required excellent marks in both the sciences and the liberal arts. They offered us multiple examples of notable Statesmen and Nobel Laureates alike who, empowered by incorporating the lessons learned from the liberal arts, made major breakthroughs for mankind . . . such as human rights, freedom of speech, the splitting of the atom, penicillin, the Magna Carta, the Geneva Conventions, and the U.S. Constitution itself . . .
Slowly, St. Mike's, without my knowledge, began to hone, tame and humble me by introducing new ways of thinking and reasoning.
I, like all my classmates, had to give up that concrete black and white thinking of youth to meet the demands of the outside world.
Most students incorporated those new concepts to one degree or another over the next 4 years. Confidence was built through testy debates on what our increasingly complex world demanded of us. The process re-introduced me to the academic world I thought was unfriendly . . . and gave me a new love for books which were once the enemy of every dyslexic child.
Less than a month into my freshman year a profound geopolitical event occurred that no one had anticipated or was ready for. On October 4, 1957 we huddled around the one radio available in the barracks to listen to the faint battery powered beeps of the Russian satellite Sputnik. The following day the faculty held an `all student assembly' to discuss the impact of the satellite launch on mankind and openly asked if any students would consider changing their major to the sciences. The Space war had begun in earnest. Everyone's sense of security suddenly changed and with it many Cold War humanitarian crises sprang up around the world
. . . many of which, in a short decade, I became mired in myself.
Every generation has their own Sputnik moments. Your generation already has more than your share.
The liberal arts and the comparative religion courses prepared me for my life as a humanitarian more than I ever realized at the time.
Yes, we all read the Bible and debated its meaning . . . but we also found a certain solace in understanding that similar beliefs were universal among many other religions and the cultures they were tied to.
All religions that have survived over the centuries collectively teach ``social justice'' . . . a language all its own that defines the fair and just relationship between the individual and society. It is that shared social justice that I have in common with my humanitarian and volunteer colleagues on every continent . . . might they be Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, agnostics or atheists and whether they live in the Middle East or rural Vermont.
All the major wars and multiple conflicts that I became engulfed in over my lifetime were all fought over ``whose god was the true god!'' Unfortunately, these wars continue today.
Admittedly, and probably somewhat selfishly, I fell in love with the challenges of global health and humanitarian assistance.
And yes, that shy girl friend who supported my application to St. Mike's and I were married my first year of medical school and we had 3 children by the time I finished my residency at the Yale University Medical Center.
Service to one's country was mandatory then . . . and the government obliged by drafting me into the military. In 1968 I was rapidly trained and rushed, within 20 days, into the madness of the Viet Nam war as a Combat physician with the Marines.
Subsequently I was recalled to active duty as a combat physician in 5 major wars, and over the years moved up the invisible ladder of leadership in managing conflicts in over 40 countries. I've worked for and with the World Health Organization, the International Red Cross and multiple global humanitarian organizations. I found myself negotiating with numerous African warlords and despots including Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
I set up refugee camps, treated horrific war wounds, severe malnutrition, scurvy, the death throes of starvation, and cholera, malaria and blackwater fever, to name but a few . .
. When I was only a few years older than you, I had to manage the largest Bubonic Plague epidemic of the last century.
Eventually, in 2003 I served the State Department as the Senior Health Diplomat and first Interim Minister of Health in Iraq where I was the target of 3 assassination attempts by the same Sunni military that now, more than a decade later, make up today's ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria. Yes, it is madness.
Obviously, my work was often quite dangerous. Making uncomfortable but real decisions over who survives and who doesn't, simply because there are scant resources, is always a nightmare. Over 1,000 fellow humanitarian aid workers have been killed during my time . . . many, many more than any United Nations Peacekeepers.
I have seen more senseless death and suffering than anyone my age should be allowed to witness. The same ``how and why'' issues that I first struggled with in Logic class at St. Mike's were now re-framed in very basic daily struggles of both ethics and morality.
As such, I moved more and more to care for the most vulnerable . . . the children, women, the elderly and disabled who make up 90% or more of those who flee or become ill, injured or die in every war. This became my calling.
While some of this may impress the budding healthcare professionals in the audience, everything I experienced in war was preventable . . . it need not have happened. War is not the answer.
But, my humanitarian work was the most meaningful I have ever done. I have no regrets. The saving of lives when the victims themselves have given up . . . and working with some of the most self-less people in the world, is addictive . . . and for a physician the adrenaline rush, intensity of the work and the diagnostic challenges are comparable to nothing else.
As Medical Director of the last Orphan Lift out of Saigon in 1975, I was secretly slipped into a refugee crowded, already surrounded and hostile Saigon during its last days to find abandoned and ill infants . . . many alone and starving in dank and dirty orphanages. We airlifted out 310 nameless infants in file boxes . . . 20 years later, by chance, I met an attractive and ebullient Asian woman, now a graduate student who had been the valedictorian of her college class. She was one of the infants I rescued . . . Life comes full circle . . . it was a really good day.
The scientific research that defines my academic career has me closely working with like-minded colleagues in Iran, Israel, Iraq, China, the European Union and many others. And Yes, another example of life taking full circle . . . the Nobel Laureates, once touted in 1957 as examples for us to emulate by the St. Mike's science Professors, selected a 2013 research study I co-authored to be presented and debated at their World Summit in Spain last year. Good people are listening and reading your work. So for the future academics and scientists in the audience. . . . Never give up!
Hopefully, my now fading career allows me to reflect and offer some parting Grand-Fatherly advice:
The essence of volunteerism is found in understanding the culture of the people we engage with, even within our own communities. In my experience, we did not understand the culture of Viet Nam or Iraq, and when General Petraeus was asked at the 10 year mark in Afghanistan what he would have done differently he said ``I would have learned more about the culture!'' . . .
Graduation marks your movement from the protective culture of the campus to a culture that is more complex, unforgiving at times, but also very exciting and worthwhile.
Most young volunteers are understandably burdened by the non-action they have reluctantly inherited from my generation. . . . . Burdens that shamelessly stem from worldwide political neglect of both the health and science of the planet.
You should be disappointed but also challenged. . . . However, a very hopeful characteristic of your generation is that you more often than not see yourselves less as nationalists . . . and more as global citizens. This marks a significant shift from my generation and a hopeful game-changer in the global landscape.
As your volunteerism matures, use whatever bully pulpit you have to expose and change those inequities that you see in the world. The risk is worth it.
I spoke up in Iraq over blatant human rights violations of the Geneva Convention and was called a ``traitor'' in the political Press. I am most proud I made that choice.
Remember, those who do have the political power to make change frequently do not know what they don't know. Instinctively, all volunteers are also educators and advocates. . . . It comes with the title.
The MOVE program, run by the Campus Ministry, and the Fire
& Rescue Squad represent realistic ``real world models'' that one can neither assume nor get from the classroom alone. I wish I had experienced them myself. These inspiring volunteer initiatives have changed the culture of the College and more broadly and accurately re-defined ``American exceptionalism.''
Harvard, where I teach today, has recently taken a page from the St. Mike's playbook by placing more emphasis on accepting students to College who value caring for the community over individual extracurricular achievements. They claim that ``community service'' and the ethical concern for the greater public good!'' is a more sensitive and true measure of an applicant.
I agree! St. Mike's, emphasizing ``service to others'' has owned and promoted this belief for many decades.
Aid to the oppressed has never stood still. Volunteerism, in general, is increasingly moving toward prevention, recovery and rehabilitation. . . . . Your role models must be those distinguished recipients of the honorary degrees today. I applaud their self-less commitments to others.
St. Mike's was an unselfish gift to me. My class of 1961 was unique in producing many leaders in science, education, government, law, the military, industry, the social sciences, and medicine and dentistry to name but a few. They are all great citizens who still argue incessantly over politics . .
. some things never change. . . . nor should they!
Please promise me that you will see your classmates often .
. . call them, email them and return to the reunions . . . it's a great time to brag and see that everyone is equally aging and putting on weight. I do miss many of my friends and colleagues and also the professors who I tried to model myself on who passed away before I could thank them.
And yes, . . . as a bonus, there is another Harvard study this year that shows that both volunteers and their recipients increase social connections, reduce stress . . . and live longer lives!
I must close now. . . . As a 31 year Navy and Marine Corp veteran I wish to leave you with a saying that we, in the service of our country, always thought was strictly a nautical blessing. . . . In point of fact, it is a universal phrase of good luck as one departs on a voyage in life. . . . It reads: ``Let me square the yards . . . while we may . . . and make a fair wind of it homeward''. I wish you all in this audience ``Fair Winds and Following Seas''. . . . God speed to you and St. Mikes . . . and thank you for listening . . .
____________________
