S.Amdt. 2450

SA 2450. Mr. MORAN submitted an amendment intended to be proposed to
amendment SA 2301 proposed by Mr. Inhofe to the bill S. 4049, to
authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2021 for military activities
of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for
defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military
personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes; which
was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the appropriate place, insert the following:

SEC. ___. ``SIX TRIPLE EIGHT'' CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL.

(a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
(1) On July 1, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed
into law legislation that established the Women's Army Corps
(referred to in this section as the ``WAC'') as a component
in the Army. The WAC was converted from the Women's Army
Auxiliary Corps (referred to in this section as the
``WAAC''), which had been created in 1942 without official
military status. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod
Bethune, the founder of the National Council of Negro Women,
advocated for the admittance of African-American women into
the newly formed WAC to serve as officers and enlisted
personnel.
(2) Dubbed ``10 percenters'', the recruitment of African-
American women to the WAAC was limited to 10 percent of the
population of the WAAC to match the proportion of African-
Americans in the national population. Despite an executive
order issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941
banning racial discrimination in civilian defense industries,
the Armed Forces remained segregated. Enlisted women served
in segregated units, participated in segregated training,
lived in separate quarters, ate at separate tables in mess
halls, and used segregated recreational facilities. Officers
received their officer candidate training in integrated units
but lived under segregated conditions. Specialist and
technical training schools were integrated in 1943. During
World War II, a total of 6,520 African-American women served
in the WAAC and the WAC.
(3) After several units of White women were sent to serve
in the European Theater of Operations (referred to in this
section as the ``ETO'') during World War II, African-American
organizations advocated for the War Department to extend the
opportunity to serve overseas to African-American WAC units.
(4) In November 1944, the War Department approved sending
African-American women to serve in Europe. A battalion of all
African-American women drawn from the WAC, the Army Service
Forces, and the Army Air Forces was created and designated as
the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion (referred to in
this section as the ``6888th''), which was nicknamed the
``Six Triple Eight''.
(5) Army officials reported a shortage of qualified postal
officers within the ETO, which resulted in a backlog of
undelivered mail. As Allied forces drove across Europe, the
ever-changing locations of servicemembers hampered the
delivery of mail to those servicemembers. Because 7,000,000
individuals from the United States were serving in the ETO,
many of those individuals had identical names. As an example,
7,500 such individuals were named Robert Smith. One general
predicted that the backlog in Birmingham, England would take
6 months to process and the lack of reliable mail service was
hurting morale.
(6) In March 1945, the 6888th arrived in Birmingham. Upon
their arrival, the 6888th found warehouses filled with
millions of pieces of mail intended for members of the Armed
Forces, United States Government personnel, and Red Cross
workers serving in the ETO.
(7) The 6888th created effective processes and filing
systems to track individual servicemembers, organize
``undeliverable'' mail, determine the intended recipient for
insufficiently addressed mail, and handle mail addressed to
servicemembers who had died. Adhering to their motto of ``No
mail, low morale'', the women processed an average of 65,000
pieces of mail per shift and cleared the 6-month backlog of
mail within 3 months.
(8) The 6888th traveled to Rouen, France in May 1945 and
worked through a separate backlog of undelivered mail dating
back as far as 3 years.
(9) At the completion of their mission, the entire unit
returned to the United States. The 6888th was discontinued on
March 9, 1946, at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey.
(10) The accomplishments of the 6888th in Europe encouraged
the General Board, United States Forces, European Theater of
Operations to adopt the following premise in their study of
the WAC issued in December 1945: ``[T]he national security
program is the joint responsibility of all Americans
irrespective of color or sex'' and ``the continued use of
colored, along with white, female military personnel is
required in such strength as is proportionately appropriate
to the relative population distribution between colored and
white races''.
(11) With the exception of smaller units of African-
American nurses who served in Africa, Australia, and England,
the 6888th was the only African-American women's unit to
serve overseas during World War II.
(12) The members of the ``Six Triple Eight'' received the
European African Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, the Women's
Army

[[Page S4292]]

Corps Service Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal for
their service.
(b) Congressional Gold Medal.--
(1) Award authorized.--The Speaker of the House of
Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate
shall make appropriate arrangements for the award, on behalf
of Congress, of a single gold medal of appropriate design in
honor of the women of the 6888th Central Postal Directory
Battalion (commonly known as the ``Six Triple Eight'') in
recognition of--
(A) the pioneering military service of those women;
(B) the devotion to duty of those women; and
(C) the contributions made by those women to increase the
morale of all United States personnel stationed in the
European Theater of Operations during World War II.
(2) Design and striking.--For the purposes of the award
described in paragraph (1), the Secretary of the Treasury
(referred to in this section as the ``Secretary'') shall
strike the gold medal with suitable emblems, devices, and
inscriptions, to be determined by the Secretary.
(3) Smithsonian institution.--
(A) In general.--After the award of the gold medal under
paragraph (1), the medal shall be given to the Smithsonian
Institution, where the medal shall be available for display,
as appropriate, and made available for research.
(B) Sense of congress.--It is the sense of Congress that
the Smithsonian Institution should make the gold medal
received under subparagraph (A) available elsewhere,
particularly at--
(i) appropriate locations associated with the 6888th
Central Postal Directory Battalion;
(ii) the Women in Military Service for America Memorial;
(iii) the United States Army Women's Museum;
(iv) the National World War II Museum and Memorial; and
(v) any other location determined appropriate by the
Smithsonian Institution.
(c) Duplicate Medals.--Under such regulations as the
Secretary may prescribe, the Secretary may strike and sell
duplicates in bronze of the gold medal struck under
subsection (b) at a price sufficient to cover the costs of
the medals, including labor, materials, dies, use of
machinery, and overhead expenses.
(d) National Medals.--
(1) National medals.--Medals struck under this section are
national medals for purposes of chapter 51 of title 31,
United States Code.
(2) Numismatic items.--For purposes of section 5134 of
title 31, United States Code, all medals struck under this
section shall be considered to be numismatic items.
______