Remarks at a Veterans Day Ceremony in Arlington, Virginia

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Nov 15, 1999

November 11, 1999

Thank you very much, Secretary West, for your eloquent remarks and your leadership and your many years of devotion to our country. Commander Smart, thank you for your leadership this year. Chaplain Cooke, Lee Thornton, thank you for always being here for our veterans.

The leaders of our veterans' organizations; Members of Congress here; Deputy Secretary Gober and members of the Cabinet; General Ross and members of the Joint Chiefs; General Davis and other Medal of Honor recipients. To the former POW's, the families of those still missing in action, to our veterans and their families.

Let me begin by offering a special word of appreciation to the Army Band and Chorus for their magnificent music today and for making us feel so important. And I want to say a special welcome today to a person you may have read about in the morning papers--Capt. Earl Fox is the Senior Medical Officer at the Coast Guard Personnel Command here in Washington. He also happens to be the last World War II veteran still on active military duty. Now, next week he will retire at the tender young age of 80. I think he has earned his retirement. But Captain, on behalf of a grateful nation, we say thank you for your service. Thank you.

My fellow Americans, as we all know, we celebrate Veterans Day on the anniversary of the armistice ending World War I, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Eighty years ago today, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed this a day of solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service. For 2 full minutes in the middle of that day, all traffic and business across our Nation stopped, as Americans took time to remember family and friends who fought and those who never came home from the "war to end all wars." I don't believe those men and women who were our forebears could ever have imagined that so many other times in this century young Americans would be asked again and again to fight and die for freedom in foreign lands.

When the 20th century began, the headstones that stand in silent formation on these beautiful hills covered fewer than 200 acres. Today, at century's end, they cover more than 600 acres. Hundreds of millions of people in the United States and around the world sleep in peace because more than a million Americans rest in peace, here and in graves marked and unmarked all across the world. Today we come again to say we owe them a debt we can never repay.

In a way, the young men and women who have died in defense of our country gave up not only the life they were living but also the life they would have lived, their chance to be parents, their chance to grow old with their grandchildren. Too often when we speak of sacrifice, we speak in generalities about the larger sweep of history, and the sum total of our Nation's experience. But it is very important to remember that every single veteran's life we honor today was just that, a life, just like yours and mine. A life with family and friends and love and hopes and dreams and ups and downs, a life that should have been able to play its full course.

Fifty-seven years ago this week, the eyes of America were focused on a small, sweltering island in the South Pacific. Pearl Harbor had been bombed the year before, and Japanese forces in the Pacific were capturing one island after another. The task of stopping them fell to a group of young marines in an operation called Project Watchtower, in a place called Guadalcanal. The battle was expected to last 6 weeks. It took 6 months. The jungle was so thick soldiers could hardly walk; fighting so fierce and rations so thin that the average marine lost 25 pounds. Every night shells fell from the sky, and enemy soldiers charged up the hills. The only weapons marines had to defend themselves were Springfield rifles left over from World War I. But with the strength forged in factories and fields back home, they turned back wave after wave of hand-to-hand fighting, until at last, the Navy was able to help the marines turn the tide in the naval battle that began 57 years ago tomorrow.

That turned the tide of battle in the whole Pacific and with it the tide of American history. On that small island, in the Battle of Guadalcanal, Americans proved that our Nation would never again be an island, but rather allied with freedom and peace-loving people everywhere, as the greatest force for peace and freedom the world has ever known.

In the days and years that have followed, men and women, forged from the same mettle, in every branch of our military have built on those sacrifices and stood for the cause of freedom, from World War II to Korea, to Vietnam, to Kuwait City, to Kosovo.

On the beach at Guadalcanal is a monument to those who fought on the island. In the hills that surround us, some of the 1,500 marines and sailors who lost their lives in that battle are laid to rest. They are some of the greatest of the greatest generation.

One of those who served at Guadalcanal was a 19-year-old marine lieutenant named John Chafee. He went on to fight in Oldnawa, to lead troops in Korea, to serve as Governor of Rhode Island and Secretary of the Navy, and then, for more than 20 years, as a United States Senator. He helped write the law that keeps our air clean. His fights for health care helped millions of veterans live better lives. Yet he was so humble that when he received a distinguished award from the Marine Corps Foundation last year, he hardly spoke about his wartime service. Two weeks ago, this remarkable man passed away at the age of 77. At his funeral, Hillary and I spent time with his 5 children and his 12 grandchildren. And I was proud to announce on that day that the Navy will be naming one of its most modem and capable destroyers after John Chafee.