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Floor Speech

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Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, earlier this month, on April 1, 2026, we marked the 80th anniversary of the end of the North Platte Canteen. Now, Nebraskans know this story, and today I rise to make sure that the U.S. Senate knows it as well.

During World War II, a small town in West Central Nebraska became famous all across the country. In 1941, a few local women began bringing desserts to the soldiers who were stopping at North Platte's train station, and that simple act of kindness grew into a waiting room that was filled with sandwiches and coffee and cakes, all donated by volunteers from surrounding communities.

From Christmas Day 1941 to April of 1946, these Nebraskans met every single train that came through with food and with friendship. Each day, up to 32 trains rolled in, carrying thousands of uniformed servicemembers. As the war raged on, support poured in from communities across that region of my State. In just 1 month, the canteen received around 40,000 cookies, 30,000 hard-boiled eggs, 6,900 birthday cakes, and 28 pounds of sandwich meat.

Over the course of the war, more than 6 million soldiers passed through this canteen. The people of North Platte gave encouragement to our country's bravest, providing warmth and kindness to those headed to the frontlines during one of the darkest periods in modern history. They gave our soldiers a small but meaningful taste of home and of hope. I like to call it the origin of the saying ``Nebraska Nice.''

The Lincoln County Historical Museum has preserved this history for decades, including letters written by soldiers who passed through that station. These letters speak for themselves. Allow me to share two.

One soldier, who was writing from Fort Warren in Cheyenne, reached out to a young woman named Virginia Schlueter after meeting her at the station. He reminded her of who he was by recalling that he and his fellow Ohioans had borrowed her lipstick to write down her address, and he noted that in 1,400 miles of travel, North Platte was the only town that had done a single thing for them.

Another soldier, Lyle Parks of Bay City, MI, wrote that most of the journey had been over flat, flat country, broken only by that one stop in North Platte. The town may not be large, he said, but the people there had big hearts and what they were doing was making a real difference for the morale of the men.

Those words were written by men on their way to war who were inspired by a small Nebraska town that simply decided to show up.

The North Platte Canteen was a remarkable volunteer effort. More than 55,000 people, nearly all of them women, kept it running, and those volunteers raised over $137,000. That is worth more than $2 million today. I am proud to say that one of those women was my mom, Florence Strobel. She was a new teacher. She moved from Lincoln to North Platte to teach kindergarten during the fall of 1944. She hadn't graduated yet from Teachers College at the University of Nebraska, but the dean of the college came up to her and said: North Platte needs a kindergarten teacher, Florence, so you better go. So she went out, and she proudly served among those canteen volunteers.

She would tell us wonderful stories of her time there greeting ``the boys'' on the troop trains and the wonderful volunteers that she met at the station. Her stories are part of why I am standing here today.

In honor of all of those 55,000 volunteers, I introduced the North Platte Canteen Congressional Gold Medal Act, and this bill would award a collective Congressional Gold Medal to every individual and community who volunteered at or donated to the canteen. This is the highest honor that Congress can bestow upon civilians. I am proud to have 53 cosponsors, and I ask my colleagues to join us as we work toward that 67 number that is needed for passage.

Eighty years later, the North Platte Canteen still speaks of something essential about who we are as Americans--no fanfare, no orders, just neighbors deciding that the men and women that were heading out to war deserved a warm meal, a kind word, and a piece of home.

I ask my colleagues to help us give these volunteers the place in American history that they have long deserved.

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