|
 Text of Speech:
I want to express my special thanks to my countrymen who serve
the United States over 3,500 miles from our own shores. Never
in history has a country had so many of its sons serving so far
away from their own land in a time of danger -- not for the purpose
of conquest, but for the purpose of freedom.
Stretching all around the globe, there are Americans on duty
who help maintain the freedom of dozens of countries who might
now be engulfed if it were not for this long thin line which
occupies such a position of responsibility, guarding so many
gates, where the enemy campfires in some cases can be seen from
the top of the wall.
We take the greatest pride in this record, and I want to express
the thanks of the American people to the members of this Division
and Corps, and to their families who also serve far away from
home. And I hope that 180 million Americans and millions of others
who sleep peacefully at night know that it's because you stand
in this field.
Your ability to sustain yourselves ensures the peace. We maintain
the peace by preparing for adversity. And your willingness to
serve here - members of the Air Force who are stationed in a
hundred different airfields; ships of our Navy, far out of sight
of land - help protect the peace and the freedom. So I do not
think it amiss that we take some satisfaction in this record.
We thank you especially for undertaking the burdensome tasks
that sometimes go with peacetime military service.
I have quoted before, and quote now, an old poem, which I
don't think is true in this case, which says that:
| |
God as a soldier, all men adore,
In time of danger and not before.
The danger passed, and all things righted,
God is forgotten,
and the Old Soldier slighted. |
In these days we depend upon God, and we also depend upon
our soldiers.
Thank you.
|