    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
    [November 16, 1994]
    [Pages 2102-2104]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 2102]]

    Remarks to the Military Community at Hickam Air Force Base in
    Honolulu, Hawaii
    November 16, 1994

        Thank you so much. It's good to be home. Thank you. Admiral Macke,
    General Kealoha, Senator Akaka, Congresswoman Mink, Congressman
    Abercrombie, Governor and Mrs. Waihee, to Governor-elect Cayetano, and
    Lieutenant Governor-elect Hirono, and Mayor Harris. Hillary and I and
    our distinguished Secretary of Commerce, Ron Brown, we're all very glad
    to be here with all of you.
        I want to say a special word of thanks and appreciation to the
    service members and the spouses, the families of the Army, the Navy, the
    Air Force, the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard, all of you stationed here
    in Hawaii. And I'd like to say a special word of thanks to the Marine
    Corps Band for making me feel so very at home when I got off the
    airplane. Thank you.
        I'm glad to be back at Hickam. I want all of you to know that while
    you're a long way from the mainland, you're never far from the hearts of
    every American who understands what you're doing here to keep our
    country safe and strong. I thank all of you for that.
        As you know, I have just returned from a trip to Asia, a trip that
    began on Veterans Day at Arlington National Cemetery, where on behalf of
    the American people I was able to express our gratitude for those who
    paid the ultimate sacrifice to keep our Nation free. I then stopped at
    our airbase in Alaska. It was rather different than here. [Laughter] It
    was about 23 degrees. The snow was already knee-deep and coming down,
    but it was very warm. And the men and women there in uniform are also
    doing a very important job for America. And I went to Manila in the
    Philippines to honor those who fought in World War II.
        It has been an immensely rewarding time for me to serve as the
    President and Commander in Chief. Just a few days ago I was in the
    Persian Gulf with our forces there who got there so quickly and stopped
    the aggression of Saddam Hussein before it ever got started, thanks to
    the United States.
        So to all of you here and all of your counterparts around the world,
    I say the world knows that the skills of our fighting men and women have
    never been higher. Your capacity to carry out our missions has never
    been greater. Your commitment to liberty has never been stronger. The
    world is more peaceful and secure because of you. And the most important
    thing I came here to say tonight is thank you.
        You know, the world is changing profoundly. There are still threats
    out there, and they are significant, threats of proliferation of weapons
    of mass destruction, threats of terrorism, the growing international
    drug trade, and the rise of international organized crime in the wake of
    communism's fall.
        But if you really look around the world, you'd have to say that
    security, peace, and freedom are on the march, that all these children
    here today holding their American flags will in all probability grow up
    in a world where they will have less fear than their parents and their
    grandparents faced because of you.
        If you look at what's happened from the Persian Gulf and the Middle
    East to north Africa and Northern Ireland and South Africa to Haiti, if
    you look at the fact that with North Korea we just concluded an
    agreement to make certain that that nation becomes a nonnuclear nation,
    not selling nuclear materials to others, if you look at the agreement we
    reached with China to stop the proliferation of missiles, and if you
    look at the fact that in Russia for the first time since nuclear weapons
    came on the face of the Earth, there are no Russian missiles pointed at
    American children, you'd have to say we're on the move.
        Our forces in the Pacific are at this moment undertaking critical
    missions from Haiti to the Sinai, from joint exercises with Japan to
    your role in deterring Iraq. I appreciate all of that. I know well that
    the success of our diplomatic efforts depends in large measure on our
    military strength. It is imperative that you remain the best fighting
    force in the world. And we are determined to do everything we can to
    make sure that that is exactly what happens.
        Let me say, too, that all of you know, even though your role as
    workers might be in our national defense, that the world of America at
    home is changing, too, in ways that are both

    [[Page 2103]]

    good and troubling. We've had problems in our system that are profound:
    60 percent of American wage earners are earning the same or less today
    that they were earning 15 years ago when you adjust for inflation. We
    know that this has been especially hard on working men with limited
    educations. We know that our country still has rates of crime, violence,
    and family and community breakdown that are too high and unacceptable.
    We know that a lot of people have a deep sense that our Government,
    except for you, in which they have confidence, only works for organized
    special interests and is too often unable to protect the interests or
    the values of the ordinary Americans. The deep concern and frustration
    of our people about these conditions led to the changes they voted for
    in both 1992 and in 1994.
        But just because the Congress changed hands, I think I can say for
    these Members of Congress here behind me, we don't think the message of
    the American people is, ``We want more gridlock. We want an enhanced
    role for organized interests over ordinary citizens, which is what
    always happens when we have gridlock.'' I think what the American people
    said is, ``You've got to keep working together until you change this
    enough to make it right, until you turn the difficult trends around,
    until America is going in the right direction at home as well as
    abroad.'' And I can tell you that I am committed to doing that.
        If you look at what makes a strong country, it's a lot of what makes
    a strong military: strong families, good schools, safe streets, good-
    paying jobs, the kind of things that allows people to live up to the
    fullest of their God-given potential.
        We've made a beginning on that, and we've got to keep going. We've
    got more jobs, a smaller deficit, a smaller National Government doing
    more for the American people than we had 2 years ago, thanks to Senator
    Akaka and Senator Inouye, Congressman Abercrombie and Congresswoman
    Mink, and a lot of other people who helped.
        We've taken some stands for strong families. The family and medical
    leave law will help about 200,000 people in this State to keep their
    jobs if they have to take a little time off when there's a baby born or
    a sick parent. That's something good the Government did to stand up for
    strong families, and we ought to be proud of that.
        They worked for better education when we reorganized the student
    loan law so that now all over America middle class working families can
    have their children borrow money to go to college at lower interest
    rates and better repayment terms so that no one need ever walk away from
    a college education because of the cost again.
        And even though there was great controversy about it in the
    election, I know that we will be able to make our streets safer because
    we passed the Brady bill and the crime bill and we're putting more
    police officers on the street and in getting military assault weapons
    off the street. You should have them, not people walking up and down the
    streets of our cities.
        And we now have in this economy over the last 22 months more than 5
    million new jobs. Our industries are operating at the highest capacity
    in 14 years. We have the lowest inflation in 29 years. And finally--
    slowly, slowly--we are beginning to see trends which may indicate that
    people will begin to get wage increases again. This year, there have
    been more high-wage jobs come into the American economy than in the last
    5 years combined. We have to build on these changes, not tear them down.
    There is still a lot of change that needs to be done to reward people
    who get up every day, care for their families, obey the law, do the best
    they can to be good citizens. We have to keep that momentum going.
        You know, let me just say one other thing in Hawaii. A lot of the
    problems we face today are because of big, sweeping trends in the world.
    A lot of the reasons a lot of Americans have trouble getting pay
    increases is because of the pressure of the global economy and
    competition from people who work for wages that Americans couldn't live
    on. That's been developing for 20 years now. We have to make a choice,
    whether we're going to embrace these changes and make them work for us
    or try to run away from them. One thing I want to say in Hawaii, that is
    on the frontier of America militarily and economically, is that you know
    that global change can be our friend. The reason I went to Asia is
    because whether we like it or not, the Asian economies are going to be a
    big part of the world's future. They are the fastest growing economies
    in the world. A third of our exports already go to Asia, supporting 2
    million American jobs today.

    [[Page 2104]]

        Now, we have to decide. I believe as strongly as I can say that just
    as your military strength permits America to have diplomatic strength,
    so that national security is both military and diplomatic, national
    security is also being strong at home as well as being strong abroad.
    And there is no longer a clear dividing line between what is foreign
    policy and what is domestic policy, not when everybody's job depends on
    whether we can compete in a global economy.
        If we educate our people well, that's good foreign policy. If we
    raise our kids well, that's strong national security. And if we can sell
    more American products abroad, then that means better jobs at home.
    That's good domestic policy. If we do not accept any other lesson in
    this calendar year, let us say there is no easy dividing line between
    our role in the world and our role at home. We must be strong at home
    and strong abroad. They are two sides of the same coin.
        And so, let me say that I went to Indonesia, a long way from
    America, because I thought it was good for Americans, because we made an
    agreement in Indonesia that we would by a date certain take down all the
    barriers to trade and investment in all the countries of the Asian-
    Pacific region that were there. And that is a big deal, because we
    already have the most open markets in the world. So if others lower
    their markets, it means more sales for Americans, more jobs, and higher
    incomes.
        The United States this year at the world economic forum in
    Switzerland was voted the most productive economy in the world for the
    very first time in 9 long years, 9 years. We are coming back. We need a
    fair chance to sell America's products and services around the world,
    just as we can promote America's ideals and values around the world. And
    that's what this trip was all about. That's what my work is all about.
        And without regard to our party, let us agree, there's no easy line
    between our role in the world and our role at home. We can't be strong
    abroad if we're not strong at home. We'll never be strong at home if we
    withdraw from our responsibilities around the world. What really makes
    us strong is strong families, good education, safe streets, good jobs,
    and national security. You, as much as any group in America today,
    embody all those, and all Americans are in your gratitude.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 7:05 p.m. In his remarks, he referred to
    Adm. Richard C. Macke, USN, commander in chief, U.S. Pacific Command;
    Brig. Gen. Dwight M. Kealoha, USAF, base commander; Gov. John Waihee of
    Hawaii and his wife, Lynne; Governor-elect Benjamin Cayetano; Lieutenant
    Governor-elect Mazie Hirono; and Mayor Jeremy Harris of Honolulu.