[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 5 (Tuesday, February 3, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E77-E78]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          A QUESTION OF HONOR

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JAMES M. TALENT

                              of missouri

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 3, 1998

  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I commend the remarks of William Bennett to 
my colleagues. His recent speech at the United States Naval Academy is 
an excellent discussion of what is important in our society.

                        DOES HONOR HAVE A FUTURE

                          (By William Bennett)

       It is a privilege to address you this evening.
       As way of background--not by way of boasting, but simply 
     wondering out loud--I should tell you that lately I have 
     received invitations from all of the military academies 
     looking for guidance and help on ethical issues. I will 
     confess that it is a bit strange to me that a well-known 
     former government employee and sometime philosopher like 
     myself should be asked to address this assemblage on matters 
     of ethics and honor, right and wrong, on the question, ``Does 
     Honor Have a Future?''. But as Sir Thomas More said, ``Ladies 
     and gentlemen, I give you the times.''
       And what do we make of these times? These are good times 
     and bad times. We all know that there have been troubling, 
     and even terrible, incidents here at the United States Naval 
     Academy, and at other academies as well. While we should be 
     bothered by these incidents, we should also be troubled by 
     the superficial, flawed analyses these events have sometimes 
     received. Most of these bottom on the limp excuse that the 
     Academy simply reflects more general changes in society. It 
     goes something like this: ``There are these problems 
     everywhere--so why not here? The Academy is just a reflection 
     of the larger society.'' To which I would respond: no, it is 
     not. Whether we are talking about Annapolis, West Point or 
     Colorado Springs, you are supposed to be different--and in 
     some important ways, you are supposed to be better. It was a 
     wise man who said that when a man enters military life, he 
     enters a higher form of civilization.
       Former assistant secretary of the Army Sara Lister, who 
     called the Marines ``extremists,'' did not sufficiently grasp 
     this point. But thank goodness many other Americans still do.
       So yes, the military is--and ought to be--different in some 
     important ways from the world outside its walls. It operates 
     with a different code of conduct; a different set of 
     activities; a different way of life. I have no doubt that 
     most of you--perhaps all of you--will leave this academy 
     changed in many important regards. Perhaps you can see the 
     changes in your own life occurring even now.
       Last year, I visited the United States Air Force Academy 
     and spoke with one of the cadets, the son of a friend of my 
     wife and me. He told me about the grueling schedule: drills, 
     training, study, sports, lack of sleep, the constant pressure 
     to perform, officers yelling at him to do better and to be 
     better. I asked him two questions: When you are home on 
     vacation, do your friends understand what it is you are going 
     through? He told me no. I then asked him: do you like it 
     here? And he said, ``Mr. Bennett, I love it.'' And you could 
     tell that he did--as I know many of you love the regimen 
     here, even as you struggle to master it. And in mastering 
     it, it is inevitable that you will draw back from some of 
     the softness of contemporary civilian life.
       I want to draw to your attention an extraordinary 1995 
     article in the Wall Street Journal, written by Thomas E. 
     Ricks, about the transformation that took place in Marine 
     recruits after eleven weeks of boot camp at Parris Island.
       A Marine talked about his re-entry into society: ``It was 
     horrible--the train [ride home] was filled with smoke, people 
     were drinking and their kids were running around aimlessly.'' 
     Another private said this: ``It was crowded. Trash 
     everywhere. People were drinking, getting into fights. No 
     politeness whatsoever.'' But he went on to say, ``I didn't 
     let it get to me. I just said, `This is the way civilian life 
     is.''' According to one Sgt. Major, ``It is a fact of life 
     that there isn't a lot of teaching in society about the 
     importance of honor, courage, commitment. It's difficult to 
     go back into a society of `what's in it for me?'''
       You know that this is, unfortunately, pretty accurate. 
     There are plenty of people in

[[Page E78]]

     the rest of society, who live outside these walls, who do not 
     identify with what you stand for; some who do not agree with 
     it; and even some who scoff at honor codes and mission 
     statements, feeling themselves superior to such things.
       Here at Annapolis you learn obedience to orders, the 
     responsibility of command, respect for authority. Here at 
     Annapolis, you have dedicated yourself to high purpose and to 
     noble cause. But in the twilight of this twentieth century, 
     concepts like honor, nobility and manliness not only do not 
     elicit approbation; they often illicit ridicule, scorn, 
     mockery.
       It brings to mind C.S. Lewis's book, The Abolition of Man. 
     There, Lewis writes that ``We make men without chests and 
     expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and 
     are shocked to find traitors in our midst.''
       America is the greatest nation in the history of the 
     world--the richest, most powerful, most envied, most 
     consequential. And yet America is the same nation that leads 
     the industrialized world in rates of murder; violent crime; 
     juvenile violent crime; imprisonment; divorce; abortion; 
     sexually-transmitted diseases; single-parent households; teen 
     suicide; cocaine consumption; per capita consumption of all 
     drugs; and pornography production and consumption.
       America is a place of heroes, honor, achievement and 
     respect. But it is as well a place where far too often 
     heroism is confused with celebrity; honor with fame; true 
     achievement with popularity; individual respect with 
     political correctness. From inside here you look out at a 
     culture that celebrates self-gratification; the crossing of 
     all moral boundaries; and now even the breaking of all social 
     taboos. And on top of it all, too often the sound you hear is 
     whining--the whining of America, what can only be heard as 
     the enormous ingratitude of modern man toward our 
     unprecedented prosperity and good fortune.
       Despite our wonders and greatness, we are a society that 
     has experienced so much social regression, so much decadence, 
     in so short a period of time, that in many parts of America 
     we have become the kind of place to which civilized countries 
     used to send missionaries.
       Of course this does not change your duty in general, or 
     your duty to this country in particular. It doesn't mean you 
     may not defend this nation, or be willing to give your life 
     for it. Because the ideals of this nation are still the 
     greatest ever struck off by the mind of man. And because we 
     are a free society--with all of its attendant virtue and 
     vice--we expect you to defend the whole nation. Your job, as 
     you know--like it or not--is to defend the worst, as well as 
     the best, of us.
       So there is a difference, isn't there, between life here 
     and outside. But let me be very candid and ask a question. 
     There is doubt in Boulder, Birmingham, Boston and Buffalo. Is 
     there also doubt about honor here in Bancroft Hall? Are the 
     Midshipmen of the United States Naval Academy, and your 
     colleagues, ever seized by mission doubt? Does doubt about 
     honor gain any purchase here? Are you sure, in your bones and 
     in your heart, as well as in your head, why honor is worthy 
     of your allegiance?
       I ask the question because I am told that among even the 
     military's best and the brightest young men and women--that 
     is, even among some of you here--there is confusion of 
     purpose, attenuation of belief. What is it all about? What 
     matters most? What is life for? What endures? These are the 
     kinds of question young people within and outside the 
     military have always asked. They are worthy of your 
     attention, and ours. And they deserve, from your teachers and 
     others, an answer.
       Let me very briefly try to begin to answer these questions 
     by using two contemporary reference points which celebrated 
     major anniversaries in the summer of 1994. The first was the 
     25th year reunion of Woodstock. Woodstock, you may recall, 
     was a rock festival held in New York in 1969. It was attended 
     by 300,000 young people in the first 24 hours, and it was 
     marked by rowdiness, drinking, drug use, and even death.
       The other 1994 reference point was the 50th anniversary of 
     Operation Overload, the Normandy invasion under the command 
     of General Dwight David Eisenhower. This was, as you know, 
     the largest amphibious landing in history. It was attended by 
     about 170,000 young people in the first 24 hours. Let me say 
     a few words about each. Back in the summer of '69, Woodstock 
     was called the ``defining event of a generation;'' it was 
     undoubtedly the high point of the counterculture movement 
     in America. ``If it feels good, do it'' was a kind of 
     unofficial banner under which the participants walked. But 
     it is worth noting, I think, that most of those whose 
     attended the 25th year reunion were not even at the 
     original Woodstock rock festival. The reason, one can 
     fairly surmise, is that for many of those who attended in 
     August 1969, the memories were not good ones, not ones 
     they wished to rekindle. Woodstock was not a place to 
     which they wanted to go again. Many people grew up and 
     grew beyond what Woodstock stood for; in adulthood, they 
     consider it to have been childish, utopian, irrelevant, 
     irresponsible, or worse. It was a chapter of their lives 
     many would just as soon close, a memory they hoped would 
     grow dim with the passage of time. And the deaths and 
     sickness there were pointless, mindless, and avoidable. It 
     was a season of drug overdoses and self-inflicted death.
       Now compare the Woodstock reunion with the anniversary of 
     D-Day, which took place on another coast, in the same year. 
     What they were celebrating was something far different. 
     Poignancy and dignity surrounded that event, precisely 
     because the stakes involved were so high; the heroism so 
     manifest; the examples so inspiring. Many listened to 
     President Roosevelt's prayer, broadcast on D-Day, as he 
     recognized the horror that awaited the young men who had 
     embarked on ``the Great Crusade.''
       ``Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day 
     have set upon a mighty endeavor . . . They will need Thy 
     blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is 
     strong. He may hurl back our forces . . . They will be sore 
     tired, by night and by day . . . The darkness will be rent by 
     noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violence 
     of war.''
       As at Woodstock, there were deaths there. But they were 
     different, in numbers and in cause. According to military 
     author Paul Fussell, in one 10 minute period on Omaha Beach, 
     a single rifle company of 205 men lost 197, including every 
     officer and sergeant. But they were not pointless or 
     avoidable deaths. The price was very high--but that for which 
     they died was sacred. We remember. And their comrades-in-arms 
     remember. And so those who could, came back.
       My point is a simple one: Ephemeral things are the flies of 
     summer. They drift away with the breeze of time. They are as 
     wind and ashes. An event like Woodstock cannot hold the 
     affections of the heart, or command respect, or win 
     allegiance, or make men proud, or make their parents proud. 
     It may be remembered by the media, but it leaves no lasting 
     impression on the souls of men. It is forgotten. It was meant 
     to be forgotten. People do not pilgrimage there, for it can 
     give them nothing of worth.
       Plato reminds us that what is real is what endures. 
     Trenton, Midway and Tarawa; those on the Bonhomme Richard and 
     the crews of ``Taffey Three'' in Leyte Gulf; the Marines and 
     brave naval offices at ``Frozen Chosin''--these things 
     endure.
       In the Funeral Oration, Pericles said, ``For it is only the 
     love of honor that never grows old; and honor it is, not gain 
     as some would have it, that rejoices the heart of age and 
     helplessness.''
       Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. 
     It does so because honor is, finally, about defending those 
     noble and worthy things that deserve to be defended, even if 
     it comes at a high cost. In our time, that may mean social 
     disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as 
     always even death itself. The questions remain: What is worth 
     defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for?
       So let me end where I began. Does honor have a future? Like 
     all things human, it is always open to question. As free 
     citizens, we can always fail to live up to those ``better 
     angels of our nature.'' A lady reportedly asked Benjamin 
     Franklin after the conclusion of the Constitutional 
     Convention: ``What kind of government have you given us, Dr. 
     Franklin?'' The good doctor replied, ``A Republic--if you can 
     keep it.''
       And so honor has a future--if we can keep it, and if you 
     can keep it. We keep it only if we continue to esteem it, 
     uphold it, value those who display it--and refuse to laugh at 
     it.
       Earlier in these remarks I suggested a gulf--sometimes even 
     a chasm--between your life here and the rest of America. But 
     there are bridges across the chasm, too--bridges made by 
     hands and words and ideas that reach across generations, 
     across the centuries, from military to civilian, from 
     civilian to military. I am thinking of a small group of men, 
     not soldiers, not naval officers. They were civilians--only 
     civilians. but it was not by accident or luck that our 
     Founders pledged to one another ``our lives, our fortunes and 
     our sacred honor.'' They meant it. In this act of national 
     baptism, we are all bound together.
       It is your task, members of the brigade--it has been given 
     to you, especially--to show the way as you and your 
     forbearers, alive and dead, have showed the way before. We 
     outside know you will do it again. And the children will 
     learn by your example what honor means.
       Thank you.

       

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