WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor to commend the United Service Organizations (USO) on its 75^th anniversary:

“I want to rise to recognize an organization that’s meaningful to all of us. It's called the USO, the United Service Organizations, a private organization chartered federally in 1941 by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Congress of the United States.

“America was on the verge of World War II and the president knew it. We had fragmented volunteer organizations to serve our troops but no organization to really give them the services that they needed. The Congress passed a resolution creating and chartering the USO, consolidating those organizations into one. Since that charter was established 75 years ago, that organization has served more than 10 million American soldiers from the time they put on the uniform until the time they take it off.

“One need only go to their local airport – for me that’s Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta, where 100 million passengers went through that airport last year, many of them our soldiers, a lot of them on the way to deployment in Afghanistan or the Middle East. When they go through the Atlanta airport, the first thing they see is the USO booth and the first thing they get are services from the USO to help them in their trip, their endeavors and help them with their families.

“The USO provides invaluable help to the men and women who provide all of us with the security we relish in this great nation of ours called the United States of America. On this 75th anniversary of the USO, I commend the volunteers, 900 of them in Georgia who provide services to 150,000 Georgia soldiers a year, for all that they do on behalf of our country, on behalf of our service men and women. The USO [is] a great organization for a great country serving the greatest of all military in the United States of America and throughout the world.”

The USO was chartered on February 4, 1941, and since then has provided help to over 10 million military service members and their families. Georgia is home to some of the busiest USO operations at Hartsfield Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Ga., at Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport in Savannah, Ga., and at Robins Air Force Base in Warner Robins, Ga.

Watch Senator Isakson’s full remarks on the Senate floor here.

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The Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs is chaired by U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., in the 114th Congress.

Isakson is a veteran himself – having served in the Georgia Air National Guard from 1966-1972 – and has been a member of the Senate VA Committee since he joined the Senate in 2005. Isakson’s home state of Georgia is home to more than a dozen military installations representing each branch of the military as well as more than 750,000 veterans.