    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
    [November 11, 1993]
    [Pages 1954-1955]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 1954]]

    Remarks at the Veterans Day Ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery,
    Virginia
    November 11, 1993

        Thank you very much, Secretary Brown, General Brady, distinguished
    leaders of our veterans' organizations, Secretary Aspin and General
    Shalikashvili and the leaders of our Department of Defense and our
    military services, and to all of you, my fellow Americans.
        Today we gather to honor those who have rendered the highest service
    any American can offer to this Nation, those who have fought for our
    freedom and stood sentry over our security. On this hillside of solemn
    remembrance and at gravesites and in veterans' halls and in proud
    parades all across America, today we join as one people to appreciate a
    debt we can never fully repay.
        Every American who ever put on this Nation's uniform in war or peace
    has assumed risks and made sacrifices on our common behalf. Each of the
    1.6 million men and women now in our forces today bears our common
    burden. This day belongs to all of them, to all who have protected our
    land we love over all the decades and now, over two centuries of our
    existence. From the minutemen who won our independence to the warriors
    who turned back aggression in Operation Desert Storm, it belongs to
    those who fell in battle and those who stood ready to do so, to those
    who were wounded and those who treated their wounds, to those who
    returned from the service to friends and families and to the far too
    many who remain missing.
        We honor our veterans on this day because it marks the end of the
    First World War. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month
    there crept an eerie silence across the battlefields of Europe, and 4
    years of unbelievable destruction then came to an end. Today on the 75th
    anniversary of that Great War, it is fitting for us to recall and salute
    those from every service who contributed to the allied victory, embodied
    today by the fine figure of Mr. Coolbaugh who stood here and received
    this medal.
        Our victory in that ``war to end all wars'' was a great test of
    whether our Nation then could reach out and become involved in the rest
    of the world. Many of the soldiers who fought in that war, including the
    men whom we honored here today, were born in another century, a time in
    which America felt secure on this great and vast continent protected by
    two oceans.
        We entered World War I knowing that we could no longer run from the
    rest of the world. But in the end, while that war proved our strength,
    it did not prove our wisdom, for within the span of a short generation
    after it, we neglected during a careless peace what had been so dearly
    won in a relentless war. We turned our backs on the rest of the world.
    We ignored new signs of danger. We let our troops and arms fall out of
    readiness. We neglected opportunities for collective security in our own
    national interest. We succumbed to the siren's song of protectionism and
    erected walls against peaceful commerce with other nations. Soon we had
    a Great Depression, and soon that depression led to aggression and then
    to another world war, one that would claim a half million American
    lives.
        Now, once more we stand at the end of a great conflict. The cold war
    is over. The lesson America won in the Second World War led us to
    contain communism in the cold war and led to the greatest peacetime
    victory the world has ever known, the collapse of the communist system
    and the Soviet empire. Our long and twilight struggle against that
    expansionist adversary has ended. And even as the world marvels at this
    achievement, once again history is about to take the measure of our
    wisdom.
        Our generation is being asked now to decide whether we will preserve
    freedom's gains and learn freedom's lessons. We are being asked to
    decide whether we will maintain the high state of readiness that stood
    behind our victory or fritter away the seed corn of our security, asked
    whether we will swell the global tide of freedom by promoting democracy
    and open world markets or neglect the duty of our leadership and in the
    process and, in the withdrawal, diminish hope and prosperity not only
    for our own people but for billions of others throughout the world who
    look to us.
        One of the greatest honors we can pay to our veterans on this
    Veterans Day is to act with

    [[Page 1955]]

    the sufficient wisdom necessary to preserve the gains they have won
    through their hard service and great sacrifice. To honor those who
    served in Europe and Korea and Vietnam and the Persian Gulf, in scores
    of posts at home and abroad, let us today resolve we will not shrink
    from the responsibilities necessary to keep our Nation secure and our
    people prosperous.
        We also honor our veterans today by noting the outstanding service
    being rendered around the world at this moment by the most talented and
    the best prepared group of men and women who have ever worn our Nation's
    uniforms. This morning I had the privilege and the honor to host for
    breakfast not only the leaders of our Nation's veterans' organizations
    but also 17 of the Army Rangers, Special Operations forces and
    infantrymen who recently returned from our mission in Somalia.
    Afterwards, I invited them and their commanders into the Oval Office
    where we sat and had a visit. I was profoundly impressed by them and by
    their service.
        Not enough of our fellow Americans know the real story of what
    happened during the terribly difficult firefight in Mogadishu on October
    3d, a fight in which they demonstrated great ability, success, and
    unbelievable valor. During that raid, a Blackhawk helicopter was downed.
    Despite this setback, the Special Operations forces conducted their raid
    with precision, apprehending 20 people suspected of involvement in the
    murder of United Nations peacekeepers in the Somali mission. At that
    point, they could have pulled back to safety, confident in the success
    of their mission. After all, what they had come to do was over. But they
    share an ethic that says they can never leave a fallen comrade behind.
    So some 90 of them formed a parameter around the downed aircraft in an
    attempt to retrieve the wounded and the dead. They found they could not
    dislodge the body of one pilot, but they refused to leave him behind.
    They braved hours and hours of the fiercest enemy fire. Eighteen of them
    ultimately perished; over 70 were wounded. They exacted a terrible toll
    on their adversaries, casualties 10 times as great, fatalities 20 times
    as great.
        I want to note their presence with us here today. I want to thank
    them, and I want you to let them know that we know they did their
    mission well and that we are proud of them. Please stand up. Here they
    are. Please stand up. [Applause] We owe it to them and to their
    colleagues to ensure that our forces remain the best trained, the best
    equipped, the best prepared in the world. And we will do that. We also
    owe those who serve in our Nation's military the assurance that what
    they have done for us will not be forgotten. We owe to our veterans a
    health care system that is there for them when they need it and provides
    high quality and compassionate care. We owe to our veterans a measure of
    the security they have provided to us. And that is why, earlier today, I
    was proud to sign a bill which helps to increase the retirement benefits
    of our disabled veterans.
        And as we remember all of those whom we see today and those whom we
    can imagine who are serving for us or who have served, we must never
    forget those who were never accounted for. That obligation never dies
    until we know the whole truth. Just this month, we secured an agreement
    from the Chinese to return the remains of three American aviators whose
    cargo plane crashed there in the Himalayas in 1943. Our Nation has a
    particular responsibility to pursue the fate of our missing from the war
    in Vietnam. On Memorial Day, I pledged here that our Government would
    declassify and make available virtually all documents related to those
    who never returned from that war and that I would do it by this day,
    Veterans Day. I can tell you that last evening, the Secretary of Defense
    completed that task. That promise has been fulfilled. I know that our
    Government, our Nation together have a solemn obligation to the families
    of those who still are missing to do all we can to help them find
    answers and peace of mind.
        Every year, our humble words on Veterans Day can never do justice to
    the sacrifices made by our veterans, by those who returned and those who
    did not, by those who live among us today and those who live only in our
    memories. We know we can never repay the debt, but still we try because
    we know their sacrifices should be in our hearts every day.
        So on this day let us simply repeat to America's veterans what is
    inscribed on the medals that have been awarded to thousands of those who
    served in World War I: A grateful nation remembers.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:35 a.m. at a wreath-laying ceremony at
    the Tomb of the Unknowns.