[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George H. W. Bush (1992-1993, Book II)]
[August 17, 1992]
[Pages 1366-1369]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 1366]]


Remarks to the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention in 
Indianapolis, Indiana
August 17, 1992

    Thank you all so much. I'm proud to be back with you. This time I'll 
remember Pearl Harbor Day, too. [Laughter] May I salute Bob Wallace and 
thank him for that warm introduction; and salute Diane Wallace; say a 
special hello to a man who's doing a great job for this State and for 
our country in the Senate, Senator Dan Coats, and his lovely wife, 
Marcia, over here who flew out with us. I also want to salute our 
incoming chief, and I say ``ours'' because I am a member, a courageous 
leader in his own right, Jack Carney. Just had the pleasure of meeting 
with Jack and Joanne and the president of your ladies auxiliary who I 
also just met, Mary Sears, and Mary's husband, Sam. You've got a good 
first team.
    There's two other true heroes I want to mention. If they haven't 
spoken, you're in for a treat. But General Jack Galvin is one of the 
greatest soldiers this country ever had. He just finished up as head of 
our NATO forces and did a superb job. And of course, next to him, or 
right down one from him, you all know Senator McCain, who gave many 
years of his life fighting for his country, spending several years in a 
prison camp, an outstanding Member of the United States Senate.
    Bob Wallace invited me here. He said your members wanted to hear 
from a leader with charisma and popularity, whose words are revered from 
coast to coast. Unfortunately, Barbara wanted me to speak. But I'm 
delighted she's here with me.
    Well, as you may know, I'm on my way to Houston to the Republican 
National Convention. When I saw the size of this crowd, I thought about 
giving a dress rehearsal of that Houston speech, complete with a few 
partisan political observations. But then I got to thinking about you 
guys. You don't need to hear a political speech. You've already 
sacrificed enough for your country. [Laughter] So instead, I'd like to 
talk a little bit about where our Nation has been and where we're headed 
together.
    As we gather here today, the cold war is over. For more than 40 
years, our GI Joes and Janes hit the ground and sucked the dust in 
faraway places like North Africa and Normandy, Pork Chop Hill and Ia 
Drang Valley. Back then, we called you heroes. Today, we call you 
winners. If anyone tells you that imperial communism fell on its own, 
tell them that you helped punch it in the gut and sent it tumbling back 
down the back stairs of history. Each of you who served, each of you, 
won the battle for humanity's heart and soul.
    What a group we've put forth, these sons and daughters of Paterson 
and Peoria, you who wrote, some of you, ``Kilroy was here'' on the walls 
of the German stalags and left signs in the Iraqi desert that said, ``I 
saw Elvis''--[laughter]--and you who sang ``Don't Sit Under the Apple 
Tree'' on the roads outside London and listened to the Beatles with 
Chris Noel and Adrian Cronauer in Saigon.
    Goering, Hermann Goering, thought the American fighting forces were 
a pushover. We showed him. Kim Il-Song in Korea thought he could take 
us. Wrong again. And Saddam Hussein miscalculated. He thought we'd grown 
soft over the years. He didn't think we'd commit our Armed Forces. He 
misread the will of the American people, and he didn't believe we would 
do what it would take to win. But our men and women showed him. To put 
it real simple: We kicked a little Baghdad bully.
    Now I have a special word for those who served in Vietnam, and I 
know we have many here who did. That war was controversial. Many refused 
to serve. The Government didn't go all out to win. You were fighting 
with one hand tied behind your back, and still, you fought with courage 
and with valor.
    But your Nation, when that war ended, never appropriately said 
thanks. Then 20 years later, America was called to fight again, and this 
time we did what was needed to win. We fought quickly; we fought with 
purpose. And when the Desert

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Storm troops came home, a wondrous thing happened. America saluted, 
unanimously saluted, not just those heroes but our forgotten heroes, the 
men and women who served in Vietnam. The tribute was genuine. It was 
heartfelt, and it came from every corner of this Nation. And so, let me 
say this: It was long overdue. God bless those of you who served in that 
troubled war.
    As we all know, in every encounter, from World War II to Desert 
Storm, for every one of us on the front lines, there were other 
Americans supporting us at home, fathers and mothers and sisters, 
brothers, neighbors, who said the prayers, sent the cookies, and watched 
the mailbox. Over the years, together we footed a bill of over $4 
trillion to pay for all the tanks and ships and missiles. And so, let's 
not forget the unsung hero of the cold war, the American taxpayer.
    Why did we do it? Why did we make the sacrifice? If you ask me, we 
shed our blood and spent our treasure because we believed enough in our 
American ideals to defend them. Today, those ideals, your ideals, are 
triumphant around the entire globe. In Germany, a wall has fallen. In 
Moscow, citizens troop to the polls. Think about this: In just the past 
4 years, more people have taken the first breath of freedom than in any 
time in all of human history. You made history, and you should be proud 
of that. This is something major and important.
    But there is a method to our unselfishness. Calvin Coolidge defined 
patriotism as ``standing up for yourself by standing up for your 
country.'' We fought so our children don't have to fight.
    Remember that awful movie of several years ago--some of you may well 
remember it; Barbara and I do--``The Day After''? It brought the horror 
of the aftermath of a nuclear explosion home to a small Kansas suburb. 
People gathered in churches and lecture halls to watch it in fear 
together. Some called it a documentary of the future. Today, it doesn't 
even belong in the science fiction bin of movie rental stores. Because 
of your sacrifice, the nuclear nightmare has receded, and our kids and 
our grandkids now sleep in the sweet sunshine of peace, no longer afraid 
of nuclear war. You helped do that.
    So this is the progress in which we take pride. It's the progress 
that you've brought to the world and to our children. And yet, the 
question today is: What do we do next? We can start by remembering 
something John Kennedy once said: ``A nation reveals itself not only by 
the men and women it produces, but by the men and women it remembers.''
    I understand right in here what makes military service so special. 
Military service is the great leveler. My own Navy squadron included 
farm boys and city hustlers, athletes, bookworms, preacher's kids, Army 
brats. Together we experienced the tingling excitement of that sport of 
kings when I first went into the service, picking up cigarette butts. 
[Laughter] Now, later we felt the knots in our stomach from our first 
carrier landing and the heaviness in our hearts from spending our first 
Hanukkah or Christmas without our loved ones and the horrible, sickening 
feeling of watching our buddies go down in battle, never to return.
    These memories are etched in my mind, as they are etched in yours. 
No matter that the cold war is over, no matter how places like 
Guadalcanal and Hamburger Hill recede in our memory, our Nation can 
never and must never forget. As long as I am President, I make this 
solemn promise: We will always stand by those who stood up for America.
    That means keeping in mind a lesson that every soldier and sailor 
knows in his heart: Weakness tempts aggression. With the cold war over, 
I have put forth a responsible plan to cut defense spending, cut it to 
the level recommended by General Galvin's former colleagues, our true 
military experts. But in this political year, some will want to go 
further, a lot further. One plan offers to cut 4 times more than what 
our experts say is responsible.
    Let me say this. In the sands of Kuwait, our sons and daughters 
showed that courage is hereditary, but courage will be of no use if 
fighter planes can only be found in museums and our ships are all in 
mothballs. When it comes to defending our country, my 
loyalty lies not with the Gallup polls but with our young people who 
must gallop in

[[Page 1368]]

the way of danger. We simply must never go back to the hollow army of 
the late seventies. I stand with the marines, the soldiers, the sailors, 
the airmen, the guardsmen. We can never ask these men and women to stand 
in harm's way and then tie one arm behind their back. As long as I am 
Commander in Chief, I will stand for our Armed Forces, and I will keep 
the United States of America strong, so I can tell the American people 
our national security is second to none.
    We owe you more than a strong America abroad. We owe you a strong 
America at home, an America that lives up to the dream that you 
defended, where you can get work, and protect your family's well-being. 
Just as you can't build a home without a hammer, you can't build a dream 
without a job. Some say the way to create jobs is with more taxes; I 
disagree. I have a plan to cut Government spending and use incentives to 
get this economy moving again. So far, being very candid, that plan is 
blocked by the Congress. But this fall, with your help, I intend to 
change all of that.
    I have a special concern for those who are caught in the transition 
of our economy, for example, veterans who once worked the turrets of a 
tank and are now getting used to the keyboards of a high-tech economy. 
So I have advanced a national strategy to retrain our workers, 
especially those in the defense-related industries. I have asked our 
leader, Bob Wallace, to come to Washington and help lead that job 
training effort in the veterans community. I'm asking the Senate to 
confirm Bob as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Veterans' Employment and 
Training. And he will do a first-class job.
    Assistant Secretary of Labor for Veterans' Employment and Training, 
that's just a fancy title that really means ``Potomac pitbull for 
veterans' rights.'' [Laughter] If anyone tries to forget the vet, Bob 
and I are going to be there to clamp down on their arm.
    Now, jobs is one priority; health care, another. Our health care 
system is broken today, and we all know it. Costs are rising too fast. 
Too many people can't get coverage. Some say it's time to throw up our 
arms and let the Government take it over. Well, I have a different plan, 
a way to get at the real causes of skyrocketing costs, like faulty 
insurance programs, piles of paperwork, and way too many frivolous 
lawsuits. We're suing each other too much instead of caring for each 
other enough in this country.
    But let me make a commitment to you this morning. I am proud of what 
we have accomplished together to strengthen our veterans health care 
system, proud of the specialized health care centers that we've created 
and the new outpatient clinics. I am proud of our new registry to track 
Persian Gulf veterans and, most especially, of the billion dollars more 
every year we've invested in your health care. Every inch of the way we 
have had sound advice from Bob Wallace and Larry Rivers and so many 
others with the VFW. But let me be very clear on a key point here. While 
we must change our health care system, we will not change our commitment 
to the integrity of veterans health care.
    A couple weeks ago, I announced a new White House advisory panel, 
which will include a representative of the VFW. I want to make sure that 
when it comes to making health care changes, the veteran's voice comes 
through loud and clear. If Congress sends me legislation to dismantle 
the VA system, I will whip out that veto pen and knock down that Scud 
missile headed right for the well-being of every family represented 
here. If anyone again suggests taxing your benefits, I'll say what I've 
said many times before, ``Keep your hands off the veterans.''
    Now, there's one more promise I'll make to you. It concerns those 
who are not with us today, the ones that John McCain knows so much about 
from his own life experience. I'm talking about the POW's and the MIA's.
    As Bob mentioned, I did have my own experience with combat, nothing 
quite like John's or like many of yours. But after my plane was shot 
down on September 2, 1944, at 0732--I can't remember Pearl Harbor Day, 
but I can sure remember September 2d. [Laughter] But look, I remember 
floating around in the Pacific. Off in the distance I could see this 
Japanese-held island of Chichi Jima in the Bonin Islands. I re-

[[Page 1369]]

member worrying about whether anyone in my squadron would find me. Then 
I remember thinking: What if the other side does?
    By the grace of God, along came a submarine, U.S., and by the grace 
of God, my family never had to face the agony of a late-night phone call 
or a knock on that door. But to those who do wait for the calls or 
knocks to bring news of loved ones, let me simply say, we will never 
forget you.
    The search for answers about POW-MIA's is a question of justice, of 
oaths sworn and commitments kept. For 241 families, the uncertainty has 
already ended. I salute General Vessey, and I salute those in the Senate 
and those in the White House who have worked to this end. But there are 
still more answers to find. Without further progress, my administration 
will not move forward with Hanoi. We will not rest until we have 
received the fullest possible accounting of every POW-MIA.
    In preparing for this visit today, I ran across a quote from Daniel 
Bennis, a disabled veteran from Hamel, Minnesota. Dan Bennis was asked 
why he went to war in the first place. He said, ``I fought for the right 
to see my country in the splendor of all seasons.'' I fought for the 
right to see my country in the splendor of all seasons.
    Well, Dan, America is a country of all seasons. But to me, America 
is a nation where one season dominates, the season of spring. Today, as 
we listen to all the talk of pessimism and lost potential, we may think 
that the cold winds of winter are blowing. But I sense a different wind, 
the American wind, the warm breeze of renewal and rebirth.
    In our workplaces, our economy is being reborn as our companies 
retool for the new competition. In our schools, our students are being 
reborn as, for the first time in a century, we change the very way we 
learn. In our homes, our families are being reborn as we turn back to 
our moral foundations.
    Some ridicule me. Some ridicule us when we talk about family values. 
But it's the family that teaches us right from wrong, teaches us 
discipline, respect for the law. As every vet knows, it's family that 
wiped the tears away when we cry. Strengthening the family is not 
something we ought to do; it is something we have to do.
    Now, some take a look at all we must do as a nation and say, ``Look, 
our challenges are too big, too daunting.'' I would remind them that 
America is still the only place where miracles not only happen, they 
happen every day.
    This is the Nation that toppled the wall. This is the Nation that 
won the war. This is the Nation that produced you. None have been braver 
or sturdier. Through your courage, your valor, your sacrifice, you 
changed the course of human history. We have changed the world, and now 
we will change America because America is the land of the eternal 
spring.
    Thank you very much. May God bless the VFW, and most of all, may God 
bless the greatest, freest country on the face of the Earth, the United 
States of America. Thank you very, very much.

                    Note: The President spoke at 11:02 a.m. at the 
                        Indiana Convention Center. In his remarks, he 
                        referred to Robert E. Wallace, commander in 
                        chief, VFW, and his wife, Diane; John M. Carney, 
                        senior vice commander in chief, VFW, and his 
                        wife, Joanne; Mary Sears, national president of 
                        the ladies auxiliary of the VFW, and her 
                        husband, Sam; Chris Noel, entertainer and 
                        recipient of the VFW commander in chief's Gold 
                        Medal of Merit; Adrian Cronauer, Armed Forces 
                        Network disc jockey during the Vietnam war; 
                        Larry W. Rivers, executive director, Washington, 
                        DC office, VFW; and Gen. John W. Vessey, U.S.A., 
                        ret., Special Presidential Emissary to Hanoi for 
                        POW-MIA Affairs.