A LEGISLATIVE COMMEMORATION, Posthumously honoring USAF OSI Special Agent Staff Sergeant Peter W. Taub.

    WHEREAS, Peter W. Taub volunteered to serve in the United States Air Force from Wyncote, Pennsylvania, was a member of the Ellsworth Air Force Base community, and selflessly paid the terrible costs for our freedoms while serving in Afghanistan on December 21, 2015; and

    WHEREAS, Special Agent Peter W. Taub was a member of the Air Force's vaunted Office of Special Investigation (OSI). His service, and ultimate sacrifice incurred while being the Eyes of the Eagle, were in keeping with the highest traditions of South Dakota's veterans, federal law enforcement, and the United States Armed Forces; and

    WHEREAS, freedom is not free, especially to those families who are forced to forever bear the unbearable. Sharing the full measure of this for our nation are Peter's wife Mrs. Christina M. Paar Taub, young daughters Penelope and Petra Taub, parents Mr. Joel and Donna Taub, Mrs. Arlene and Allen Wagner, siblings John and Christina, and parents-in-law Brian and Rhonda Manley; and

    WHEREAS, we feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of ours which shall attempt to beguile the family and friends from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But we cannot refrain from even now tendering the consolation that may be found in this heartfelt appreciation and respect of the people of South Dakota whose freedoms Peter died helping to protect and preserve; and

    WHEREAS, we pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of his family's and friends' bereavement, and leave them only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that is theirs to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom:

    NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT COMMEMORATED, by the Ninety-Second Legislature of the

State of South Dakota, that Special Agent Peter W. Taub is posthumously honored, commended, and remembered for his service and noble sacrifices, by the people of South Dakota. In token of South Dakota's shared perpetual grief at his loss, their respect and appreciation for his service and sacrifice, this commemoration is enrolled and appropriately immortalized for posterity. Requiescat in pace.