[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.