    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
    [September 16, 1994]
    [Pages 1564-1566]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 1564]]

    Remarks Honoring African-American Veterans of World War II
    September 16, 1994

        Thank you very much, Congressman Rangel, Secretary Brown, Chairman
    Mfume, other members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and to all of
    the veterans of our Armed Forces who are here, to your family members
    and friends, my fellow Americans. I am proud to be here to honor the
    African-American veterans of World War II.
        This is a distinguished generation in the history of African-
    American military service. But you belong to a legacy older than the
    Declaration of Independence, one that includes the legendary service of
    the Massachusetts 54th in our Civil War, the Buffalo Soldiers in the
    West, the 92d Division in World War I.
        Congressman Rangel, I'm sure most of you know, is a decorated
    veteran of the Korean war, and he had a son who served in the United
    States Marine Corps. I want to recognize his service and that of the
    other veterans of the Congressional Black Caucus: Congressmen Blackwell,
    Bishop, Clay, Conyers, Dellums, Dixon, Jefferson, Rush, Stokes, Scott,
    and Towns.
        I also want to acknowledge our Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Jesse
    Brown. I'm grateful to have him in my Cabinet not only because he is the
    first African-American Secretary of Veterans Affairs but because he is a
    genuine hero of our military service and someone, as Congressman Rangel
    said, who has been a Secretary of Veterans Affairs and a secretary for
    America's veterans. I was telling him on the way over here, I had just
    gotten another one of his letters reminding me that there was something
    else I should have done that I had not yet done for the veterans of this
    country. [Laughter] I told him, when we had our little interview before
    I became President, that I expected him not only to be loyal to me but
    loyal to you and that as long as he were honest and straightforward with
    me, he could fulfill both loyalties. I can honestly say he is doing his
    best to follow my admonition. [Laughter]
        I want to note that today is also POW/MIA Recognition Day, a day to
    recognize those Americans who were held prisoner of war or those who
    remain unaccounted for, the missing who never received their proper
    welcome home. They are not forgotten. The United States stands firmly
    resolved to help their young loved ones find the answers they deserve.
    And even today, we are working hard and investing a significant amount
    of money in that endeavor in Southeast Asia.
        For decades, African-American veterans were missing in our Nation's
    memories of World War II. For too long, you were soldiers in the
    shadows, forgotten heroes. Today it should be clear to you, all of you,
    you are forgotten no more. I'm very proud of your service to our
    country. You've protected and expanded the freedoms that all the rest of
    us enjoy today. Our Nation's debt to you can never be fully repaid, but
    we can certainly honor your service, as we do today.
        Americans endured much during World War II, the terrible loss of
    lives, the separation of families and loved ones, the interruptions of
    life on the homefront. All our people felt some of that. But no group of
    Americans endured what African-Americans endured in uniform. You had to
    win the right to fight the enemy we faced in common. You endured the
    indignities of double standards for black troops, the put-downs, the
    segregated units and bases, some of which gave you less freedom to move
    than German prisoners of war. You defended America with no guarantees
    that your own freedom would be defended in return.
        I'm just reading the new book by Doris Kearns Goodwin about World
    War II and President and Mrs. Roosevelt, war on the homefront, war
    abroad. She was constantly urging her husband to try to do something
    about the double standard accorded to African-American people in the
    military and demanded, among other things, that people who wanted to
    enlist in the Navy ought to be able to do something besides work in the
    mess.
        We've come a long way since then, largely because of you and many
    tens of thousands like you who disproved the false stereotypes, who
    showed that American troops were, are, and always will be the best
    trained, the best prepared fighting force in history, regardless of the
    color of their skin. In fact, units comprised entirely or mostly of
    African-Americans performed remarkably, groups honored today such as the

    [[Page 1565]]

    famed Tuskegee Airmen. This is something--[applause]--to the Tuskegee
    Airmen, stand up there. When I was in Europe recently to celebrate the
    50th anniversary of the liberation of Italy and Rome and D-Day, I was
    escorted on part of my journey by a Tuskegee Airman from my home State
    who told me what is now in my notes here--[laughter]--that Tuskegee
    Airmen flew 1,578 combat missions and they were the only fighter group
    in the Mediterranean, black or white, never to lose a single, solitary
    bomber under escort.
        The Red Ball Express, they landed at Normandy in the wake of D-Day
    and rushed materiel to supply the rapid Allied advance. The U.S. Army's
    761st Tank Battalion, the first black armored unit to see combat in
    World War II--are they here? [Applause] Thank you. They fought bravely
    at the Battle of the Bulge and did so while in combat for 183 days in a
    row.
        In Europe, North Africa, the Pacific, or stateside, in the Army, the
    Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Coast Guard, more than a million
    African-American men and women helped to win this century's greatest
    fight for freedom. In helping to show the world what America was
    against, you helped to show America what America is for. You helped to
    liberate all of us from segregation. The civil rights marches were
    already underway every time you marched in a uniform. And today, at the
    end of the cold war, we should do everything we can to pay back the debt
    we owe, to move forward as a nation as you helped America to move
    forward after World War II.
        Most of you were born in the years after World War I, a time when
    America came home from victory and retreated from the world, a time in
    which insecurity arose. As Hitler's hate spread overseas, the Red Scare
    and the Ku Klux Klan grew up here at home. But after World War II, we
    avoided a lot of those mistakes. We turned our old adversaries into new
    allies. We brought prosperity into our own economy, even as we built the
    global economy. We educated our people for new work and propelled a
    movement for civil rights that lifted millions of Americans into equal
    dignity and gave all Americans at least some chance to join the middle
    class.
        Now we have to do what your generation did for us, to guide new
    democracies into an era of security and prosperity, to renew our own
    economy, to give hope to our communities, to give every individual the
    tools they need to assume personal responsibility for themselves and
    their families, to prepare our young people for life in the 21st
    century. And perhaps still most difficult of all, we have got to find a
    way to work together in this country to make a strength out of our
    diversity, to prove that in a global economy where the Earth is smaller
    and smaller, the fact that we are nations of many races and faiths and
    many backgrounds is a great source of strength if we will tap it with
    open minds and open hearts.
        Here in the Government, the President and the Congress, we have some
    power to bring more jobs and lower the deficit. We have the power to
    pass laws that will help people to combat crime and will help to open
    trading opportunities all around the world. We have the power to pass
    laws that will give communities the tools they need to rebuild and give
    families the breaks they need to succeed at work and at home, like the
    Family Leave Act.
        But one thing I've learned here now in nearly 2 years as President:
    No matter how much progress we make in passing the laws, what goes on in
    the hearts of our countrymen is still the most important thing. And
    there is still too much in our country that divides us, too many who see
    the glass as half-empty instead of half-full. We can win the battles
    before us. There is no problem we face today that America cannot
    overcome. But we have to have the spirit and the character and the sheer
    endurance and faith that so many of you demonstrated by the dignity and
    courage of your service in the Second World War.
        Before I turn the microphone over to Congressman Sanford Bishop of
    Georgia, who will read the awards as Secretary Brown and I congratulate
    the honorees, let me say just a word about Haiti, since Congressman
    Rangel was kind enough to mention it.
        As all of you know now, it is a place where terrible atrocities have
    occurred. After a democratic leader was thrown out and dictators took
    over, people were murdered, slashed, raped, anything to intimidate them
    into submission. It is a place where democracy has been taken away, the
    only place in our entire hemisphere where an elected government was
    supplanted with a dictatorship. Because of the oppression and the
    difficulties, it is a place where we have had many immigrants streaming
    out of it, look-

    [[Page 1566]]

    ing for freedom and relief. And unless we act, there will be more.
        I hope you also know that we have bent over backwards now for 3
    years to avoid this confrontation. We have sought a peaceful solution,
    repeatedly. Last year we made an agreement here in the United States;
    the dictator, General Cedras, came here and signed an agreement in which
    he promised to leave power in return for a spirit of a reconciliation
    and humanity, putting the country back together. And then when the day
    came to keep the deal, he broke it, turned the United Nations away, and
    now they're even refusing to talk to representatives of the United
    Nations.
        Well, here in our neighborhood, that level of human rights abuse,
    the loss of democracy through robbery, the continued threat of the
    instability of immigration, and breaking your word to the United States,
    United Nations, and all your neighbors, those things are things which
    cannot stand.
        I also want to say, as all of you know, our military is as good as
    it's ever been, perhaps better than it's ever been. It's more united,
    more flexible, more modern, and yet more skilled in the old-fashioned
    virtues and abilities perhaps than ever before. Our leaders have
    prepared well for this moment, while hoping that it would not be
    necessary. But as all of you know, as well as any American, there is no
    such thing as a risk-free journey in this area.
        We have done everything we can to be deliberate and fair. Even at
    this hour, just a few minutes ago, we had all the members of our
    coalition, including the Prime Ministers of several of the Caribbean
    countries, into the White House. President Aristide made a speech in
    which he said, ``No violence, reconciliation. Let's don't do this; let's
    don't take retribution on each other anymore.'' This is a right cause,
    with a country that is near, in our own neighborhood, where the mission
    is plain and limited and achievable.
        And I just want to say to all of you that I honor your
    contributions, and I know you honor the contributions of all those young
    men and women in uniform who now are able to achieve their God-given
    abilities in the service of their country without regard to their race
    because of what you did.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 4:59 p.m. at the Longworth House Office
    Building. The National POW/MIA Recognition Day proclamation of September
    14 is listed in Appendix D at the end of this volume.