General Douglas MacArthur
On 12 May 1962, Gen. Douglas MacArthur
addressed the cadets at the U.S. Military Academy, delivering his farewell
speech, "Duty, Honor and Country." He described the legions of uniformed American
Patriots as follows: "Their story is known to all of you. It is the story
of the American man at arms. My estimate of him was formed on the battlefields
many, many years ago and has never changed. I regarded him then, as I regard
him now, as one of the world's noblest figures -- not only as one of the finest
military characters, but also as one of the most stainless."
“His
name and fame are the birthright of every American citizen. In his youth and
strength, his love and loyalty, he gave all that mortality can give. He needs
no eulogy from me, or from any other man. He has written his own history and
written it in red on his enemy's breast.”
“But when I think of his patience under
adversity, of his courage under fire, and of his modesty in victory, I am
filled with an emotion of admiration I cannot put into words. He belongs to
history as furnishing one of the greatest examples of successful patriotism. He
belongs to posterity as the instructor of future generations in the principles
of liberty and freedom. He belongs to the present, to us, by his virtues and by
his achievements.”
“In twenty campaigns, on a hundred
battlefields, around a thousand campfires, I have witnessed that enduring
fortitude, that patriotic self-abnegation, and that invincible determination
which have carved his statue in the hearts of his people.”
“From one end of the world to the other, he
has drained deep the chalice of courage. As I listened to those songs of the
glee club, in memory's eye I could see those staggering columns of the First
World War, bending under soggy packs on many a weary march, from dripping dusk
to drizzling dawn, slogging ankle deep through mire of shell-pocked roads; to
form grimly for the attack, blue-lipped, covered with sludge and mud, chilled
by the wind and rain, driving home to their objective, and for many, to the
judgment seat of God.”
“I do not know the dignity of their birth, but
I do know the glory of their death. They died unquestioning, uncomplaining,
with faith in their hearts, and on their lips the hope that we would go on to
victory. Always for them: Duty, Honor, Country. Always their blood, and sweat,
and tears, as they saw the way and the light.”
President
Ronald Reagan
On Memorial Day of 1982, President Ronald Reagan offered these words in honor of Patriots
interred at Arlington National Cemetery: "I have no illusions about what little I can add
now to the silent testimony of those who gave their lives willingly for their
country. Words are even more feeble on this Memorial Day, for the sight before
us is that of a strong and good nation that stands in silence and remembers
those who were loved and who, in return, loved their countrymen enough to die
for them. Yet, we must try to honor them not for their sakes alone, but for our
own. And if words cannot repay the debt we owe these men, surely with our
actions we must strive to keep faith with them and with the vision that led
them to battle and to final sacrifice."
“Our first obligation to them and ourselves is
plain enough: The United States and the freedom for which it stands, the
freedom for which they died, must endure and prosper. Their lives remind us that
freedom is not bought cheaply. It has a cost; it imposes a burden. And just as
they whom we commemorate were willing to sacrifice, so too must we -- in a less
final, less heroic way -- be willing to give of ourselves.”
“It is this, beyond the controversy and the
congressional debate, beyond the blizzard of budget numbers and the complexity
of modern weapons systems, that motivates us in our search for security and
peace. ... The willingness of some to give their lives so that others might
live never fails to evoke in us a sense of wonder and mystery.”
“One gets that feeling here on this hallowed
ground, and I have known that same poignant feeling as I looked out across the
rows of white crosses and Stars of David in Europe, in the Philippines, and the
military cemeteries here in our own land. Each one marks the resting place of
an American hero and, in my lifetime, the heroes of World War I, the Doughboys,
the GIs of World War II or Korea or Vietnam. They span several generations of
young Americans, all different and yet all alike, like the markers above their
resting places, all alike in a truly meaningful way.”
“As we honor their memory today, let us pledge
that their lives, their sacrifices, their valor shall be justified and
remembered for as long as God gives life to this nation. ... I can't claim to
know the words of all the national anthems in the world, but I don't know of
any other that ends with a question and a challenge as ours does: "O! say
does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave, O'er the land of the free and the home
of the brave?" That is what we must all ask.”
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