    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [July 28, 1996]
    [Pages 1209-1216]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Disabled American Veterans Convention in New Orleans,
    Louisiana
    July 28, 1996

        Thank you very much. Thank you for the exuberant welcome. I want to
    thank the ladies of the auxiliary for leading the applause for Hillary;
    that was a nice thing to do. Thank you very much. That was a very nice
    thing.
        I want to thank Commander McMasters for that introduction. It's been
    so long I'd forgotten I'd done some of those things. [Laughter] And he
    mentioned that I was a saxophone player. I think we have a Navy band
    over there; I want to thank the Navy band. Thank you for being here and
    for playing. I'll always laugh any time someone says I'm a saxophone
    player now because a couple of weeks ago, Colonel John Bourgeois, the
    Commander of the United States Marine Band, the President's own, retired
    as one of the longest serving conductors of the Marine Band. And he did
    a television interview on national television in which he was asked
    about my saxophone playing, and having sworn an oath to truth, he said
    that I was adequate. [Laughter] And painfully, I admit that that is
    about all he could say. And that's why I'm here today in this position
    rather than playing for you in your entertainment. [Laughter]
        I'm delighted to be here with Commander McMasters; with your senior
    vice commander, Gregory Reed; Barbara Hicks, your auxiliary national
    commander; Art Wilson, your national adjutant; the other officers of
    your distinguished organization; and with all of you.
        I'm glad to be joined today by Secretary Jesse Brown. [Applause] You
    know, the first time I realized that you would cheer like that--I love
    to kid Jesse and I was kidding him on the way in, and I said, ``You
    think they give that kind of reaction because they love you so much or
    because they're glad I took you off of their hands?'' [Laughter] I think
    it's the former, and I think you should.
        I'm also delighted to be joined today by a number of State officials
    from the State of Lou-

    [[Page 1210]]

    isiana and by Congressman Bill Jefferson and Congressman Cleo Fields. I
    thank them for coming.
        Ladies and gentlemen, as veterans who have given so much to defend
    our country, you know what it is personally to face an enemy. Today, we
    have an enemy it is difficult to face because the enemy is so often
    hidden, killing at random, surfacing only to perform cowardly acts.
    Their aim is to demoralize us as a people and to spread fear into
    everyday life. We must not let them do that. As Americans, we can and
    must join together to defeat terrorism wherever it strikes and whoever
    practices it.
        We all are outraged by what happened in the Centennial Olympic Park
    in Atlanta. And we all admire the athletes, the thousands of volunteers,
    the tens of thousands of fans who made a strong statement to the world
    yesterday when they showed up and carried on the Olympics, saying that
    they would not be intimidated by terrorism and that no terrorist could
    kill the Olympic spirit.
        What we saw yesterday was a symbol of an emerging consensus among
    all responsible nations and freedom-loving people everywhere that we
    have to work closely together to stop the spread of terrorism. We know,
    from the Tokyo subway to the streets of Tel Aviv to the Khobar Towers in
    Saudi Arabia, where we lost 19 of our fine Air Force personnel, that
    terrorism is a problem that knows no boundaries. We have learned here so
    painfully in America, from the World Trade Center to Oklahoma City, that
    attacks from terrorists can be homegrown or can be generated in other
    lands. We know that nations are beginning to understand that there is no
    place that is safe when any place is vulnerable to terrorists.
        Not very long ago after the upsurge of terrorist attacks in Israel,
    we had a remarkable meeting of 29 nations at Sharm al-Sheikh in Egypt,
    where for the first time 13 Arab States condemned terrorism in Israel.
    It was the beginning of wisdom, because, as the Saudis have seen, there
    is no nation which can hide from terrorism unless we all recognize that
    the rules of civilized people do not permit it to be practiced.
        The recent meeting of the G-7 nations in France produced a
    significant increase in international measures to cooperate against
    terrorism. And this week, following up on that, we will have a very
    important conference in Paris, France, involving those nations with
    high-level representatives to deal with the questions that terrorism
    presents us.
        Terrorists are often supported by states. And states that sponsor or
    permit terrorism, including Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Sudan, and any
    others, must face strong sanctions. We all have to say we cannot live
    with this; it is wrong. People must seek to resolve their differences by
    ways other than killing innocent civilians.
        This year I signed into law an antiterrorism act which made
    terrorism a Federal offense, expanded the role of the FBI in solving
    these crimes, and imposed the death penalty for terrorism. As strong as
    the bill was, it did not give our law enforcement officials some of the
    powerful tools I had recommended because they wanted and needed them,
    including increased wiretap authority for terrorists who are moving from
    place to place--where they are flexible, so must we be--and chemical
    markers, often called taggants, for the most common explosives, black
    and smokeless powder, so that we can track down those who make bombs
    that kill innocent people.
        This morning I was very encouraged to hear the Speaker of the House,
    Mr. Gingrich, express a willingness to consider these tougher measures.
    I have asked the Speaker, majority leader Senator Trent Lott, the
    leaders of the Democratic minority, Senator Daschle and Mr. Gephardt,
    and the FBI Director, Louis Freeh, to come to the White House tomorrow
    to help to agree on a package that will provide these additional
    protections against terrorism and any other measures we need to take to
    increase the protection of the American people.
        We will continue to do whatever is necessary to give law enforcement
    the tools they need to find terrorists before they strike and to bring
    them swiftly to justice when they do. This week I announced new measures
    aimed at increasing airport security, increasing baggage searches and
    screening, to tighten passenger checks, to plan the deployment of the
    latest X-ray technologies. I said then and I will say again, I am well
    aware that these new security measures will increase inconvenience and
    may even carry a modest increased cost to the air-traveling public. But
    this inconvenience is a small price to pay for better peace of mind when
    our loved ones board a plane. These measures went into effect
    immediately.
        And so, my fellow Americans, we have opened up three fronts against
    terrorism. We're increas-

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    ing international efforts to ensure that terrorists will have no place
    to plan or hide their operations. We're making use of expanded
    antiterrorism powers at home, including the death penalty. And we are
    tightening airport security. We will continue to expand our efforts on
    all three fronts against terrorism.
        I want to remind you that we have had some results. We have seen a
    record number of terrorists captured and convicted. We have thwarted a
    number of planned terrorist attacks, including a serious one against the
    United Nations and one against the United States airlines flying out of
    the West Coast over the Pacific. We are keeping the heat on terrorist
    organizations and those who would support them.
        But I would remind you that every death is one death too many. And
    we have seen now over many, many years, from the struggles of our
    allies, as well as from those we have faced recently, that this is a
    long, hard fight. But if we work together, this is a challenge we can
    and will meet. It may well be the most significant security challenge of
    the 21st century to the people of the United States and to civilized
    people everywhere. And the veterans of the United States, I know, will
    support our country being as strong and tough and smart and steadfast as
    it takes to get the job done.
        Now, let me continue by saying to you that when I ran for President
    I promised the veterans of America I would appoint a true advocate as
    Secretary of Veterans Affairs. I found that person among your ranks.
    Jesse Brown honed his skills while serving as executive director of the
    DAV. He and his deputy, Hershel Gober, who is also here with me today, I
    believe make up one of the finest leadership teams in the entire Federal
    Government. I can tell you this: Not only in public but in private, in
    every meeting on any subject, they are consistently committed to a
    better life for all veterans. And I thank them for their service.
        I'm also honored to join you in celebrating three-quarters of a
    century of service to your country. You are the best representatives of
    what I'd like to talk about today: the duty we owe to our veterans, the
    duty we owe to each other and to our children, the duty we owe to the
    rest of the world and to our future. We owe a duty to all of you, of
    course, not only for your bravery and sacrifice but for all you continue
    to do for each other, your families, and our country.
        Last year we celebrated the 50th anniversary of World War II. Many
    of you fought in that great struggle and put your lives on the line for
    freedom. Your country owes you a debt of gratitude we can never repay.
    And I can honestly say one of the most humbling honors of my life was
    representing the United States at those ceremonies in 1994 and 1995. But
    I want to say again to you, to every American who served in World War
    II, including the Republican candidate for President, Senator Bob Dole:
    Thank you for your service; thank you for your sacrifice; thank you for
    your courage. We're still around because of you. And to all who have
    served since, in Korea and Vietnam, in the Persian Gulf, in Bosnia, in
    peacetime as well as wartime, America thanks you, too, and so do
    freedom-loving people all around the world.
        Your tradition of service, of course, extends beyond the
    battlefield. This is also the 50th anniversary of the VA Voluntary
    Service Program's involvement of the DAV. Last year you donated more
    volunteer hours at VA hospitals around the country than any other
    organization. I want to congratulate your volunteers of the year whom I
    had the privilege to meet just a moment ago, Tillman Rutledge and
    Dorothy Marie Waters. They are great examples of what you stand for.
    Thank you. Thank you.
        You have done your duty to America, and America must do its duty to
    you. Secretary Brown and I recognize a simple truth: When men and women
    leave the service we must not leave them. In keeping our veterans'
    commitments, our commitments to our veterans, to help them make the most
    of their own lives does not only help veterans and their families, it's
    made America a better and stronger place. From education to employment,
    from buying a home to getting quality medical care, our veterans deserve
    our Nation's support. And when we give it, our Nation is better off. For
    the past 3\1/2\ years that is what we have done.
        Even as we cut Government spending to reduce the deficit and move
    toward a balanced budget, I have asked for a billion-dollar increase in
    funding for the VA, more than half for medical care and discretionary
    programs, including funds for a new hospital and nursing home in Brevard
    County, Florida, and a replacement hospital at Travis Air Force Base in
    California.
        We are committed to keeping the VA health care system strong into
    the 21st century, and we know that requires us to carry out a dramatic

    [[Page 1212]]

    restructuring that will improve the quality of care and make our
    hospitals more patient-centered and less bureaucratic. Last year I sent
    to Congress legislation that will allow us to simplify the complex and
    arcane eligibility rules and improve access to care at VA hospitals. I
    am pleased that Congress is beginning to act on this important proposal,
    and I hope they will get a bill to me this year. Very soon we will
    submit legislation for a pilot project to allow Medicare-eligible
    veterans to obtain treatment at a VA facility and to have the costs
    reimbursed by Medicare.
        I also want to make special mention of the extraordinary care that
    is provided by our veterans facilities to people with spinal cord
    injuries and my commitment to continue the work and research and care in
    this important area. Recently, after a visit with Christopher Reeve, I
    was pleased to announce that we are increasing our research commitment
    $10 million a year in this year. And I hope all of you noticed just a
    few days ago that we finally are beginning to show some incredible
    results where nerve transplants from the ribs to the spinal cord of
    laboratory animals have succeeded in giving laboratory animals some
    mobility in their limbs again. We can do better on this, and we have to
    keep going until we have some real success.
        We have also reached out to veterans service organizations,
    appointing veterans as delegates to the White House Conference on Aging
    and the Presidential delegation to Vietnam. We established the first
    ever interagency veterans policy groups to coordinate and spur progress
    on issues of concern to veterans and military organizations. One such
    issue for more than two decades has been the suffering of our Nation's
    Vietnam veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange. In May, I announced
    that Vietnam veterans with prostate cancer and peripheral neuropathy are
    entitled to disability payments based on their exposure to Agent Orange.
    Just this week I sent to Congress legislation to provide an appropriate
    remedy for children of Vietnam veterans who suffer from spina bifida.
        We have also responded aggressively to Persian Gulf illnesses. As
    the First Lady was traveling around the country talking about health
    care to people all over America, she kept coming back to the White House
    with stories of people who had served in the Persian Gulf conflict who
    had difficulties that were otherwise inexplicable. She got very
    involved, even emotionally involved, with some of the families, and she
    kept hammering on me that there had to be an explanation for this and
    there was no other conceivable explanation for some of these instances
    of difficulties. She encouraged me to appoint a Presidential Advisory
    Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses. I did that and charged them
    to leave no stone unturned in finding the cause of the illnesses and
    improving care available to Persian Gulf veterans. Meanwhile, we have
    made available for the first time ever compensation to the victims of
    undiagnosed illnesses who served in the Gulf war. I think they did the
    right thing there.
        One other area of endeavor is especially important to me, improving
    the contributions of all of our veterans to the maintenance of their own
    lives and their families and our communities. Today as we celebrate the
    sixth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, I want to
    reiterate a pledge I made in 1992. Our disability policy should be based
    as a nation on three simple principles: inclusion, independence, and
    empowerment.
        I know how hard you fought, along with others in the disability
    community, for the passage of this important legislation. We've made
    vigorous laws protecting all people with disabilities a top priority.
    We'll continue to do so until all the barriers come down. Consistent
    with that commitment, my budget for 1997 proposes an increase in the
    resources available to enforce the Americans with Disabilities Act.
        One of the main objectives of the act is to improve employment
    possibilities for people with disabilities. Unemployment among disabled
    veterans in particular is still too high. I am pleased that Ron Drach,
    DAV's employment director, is serving as Vice Chair of the President's
    Committee on Employment of People With Disabilities. I thank him for his
    hard work to turn those employment numbers around. And we should all be
    grateful that he is on the job.
        Beyond the duty we owe to our veterans, there are certain duties we
    all owe to each other and to our country if our children are to live in
    a 21st century that is full of peace and possibility. First, we have to
    give the American dream of opportunity to everyone who is willing to
    work for it. That means we have to have an economy that is strong and
    growing, that produces good jobs with growing incomes.
        When I became President, I was worried about the drift in our
    economy and the increas-

    [[Page 1213]]

    ing divisions within it. We've put in place an aggressive strategy to
    reduce the deficit, because that would get interest rates down and spur
    private investment and remove a burden from future generations; to
    increase trade so that we could sell more American products and services
    around the world in a global economy; and to invest in our people and
    their potential so that everyone could participate in this global
    economy in a positive way over the long run.
        We invested in education, in how to protect the environment while
    growing the economy, in transportation, in research and technology, in
    defense conversion to help those communities that had helped us to win
    the cold war so that they wouldn't be left out in the cold. We even
    lowered the average closing cost for first-time homebuyers by $1,000 so
    young families could start getting in homes again instead of just having
    a distant dream. [Applause] Thank you.
        It's been a remarkable turnaround in these last 3\1/2\ years. The
    deficit was lowered from $290 billion a year when I became President; it
    will be $117 billion this year, a 60 percent reduction. It's the first
    time since John Tyler was President in the 1840's that an administration
    has reduced the deficit 4 years in a row. And I'm proud of that. I have
    to tell you, by the way, that my staff is pleading with me to stop using
    that statistic because John Tyler was not reelected, but--[laughter]--
    still it sounds great because it's true, and it's important.
        Our economy has produced 10 million new jobs, 3.7 million new
    homeowners, 8 million homeowners who have refinanced their mortgages at
    lower interest rates. Homeownership is at a 15-year high. Exports are at
    a record. For 3 years in a row we've had a record number of new small
    businesses formed in America. And for the first time in a decade,
    incomes are actually going up for average American working people again.
    This is important. It matters.
        Veterans employment--veterans unemployment has dropped by nearly a
    third, from 7.2 percent to 4.9 percent in January of 1996. Six million
    veterans have received training and job search assistance through the
    Department of Labor in the last 3\1/2\ years. Two million now have jobs.
    We are clearly moving in the right direction.
        We have other responsibilities as well. And I want to just mention a
    couple. One is heavily on my mind at this moment. We have a
    responsibility to make our streets and our schools and our neighborhoods
    safer. The United States cannot tolerate the rates of crime and violence
    which have come to be almost commonplace in our country in the last
    several years. We have to intensify our efforts to reduce crime.
        The deaths of two police officers within a 24-hour period right here
    in New Orleans last week painfully drove that point home to everyone who
    knew about them. I had the opportunity to meet with their families just
    before coming in here. And I want to personally offer my condolences to
    the families of Officers Joey Thomas and Chris McCormick, who died while
    protecting the citizens of this city. They, too, were patriots who paid
    the ultimate price. And I know you join me in praying for their
    families.
        In the past 3\1/2\ years we have tried to change the Nation's
    approach to crime from rhetoric to action. We've had a clear strategy:
    Look at what works and make it happen everywhere. When I became
    President, to be perfectly frank, even though we had a high crime rate,
    there were cities all over the country that had already begun to lower
    their crime rate. And I went to those places and asked them how they
    were doing it. It was obvious to me what was going on. They were putting
    more police on the street, out from behind the cars, out from behind the
    desk, walking the streets, getting to know kids, getting to know
    neighbors, working with them, preventing crime as well as catching
    criminals more quickly.
        I asked them what they needed, and they told me. And that became the
    crime bill that we passed in 1994: 100,000 police on the street, a ban
    on assault weapons, tougher punishment for people who are serious
    criminals, and prevention programs to help kids stay out of crime in the
    first place. We also passed the Brady bill that kept 60,000 felons,
    fugitives, and stalkers from buying handguns, and there wasn't a single
    hunter that lost his or her hunting weapons. So we did the right thing,
    and for 4 years in a row crime has been coming down in the United
    States. We can be proud of that.
        But it is not enough. We're now going around the country trying to
    explain to communities how they can, without the fear of legal
    challenge, institute curfew policies, as New Orleans has, for juveniles
    in a way that has dramatically lowered the juvenile crime rate here and
    in a positive way has helped a lot of juveniles to sort through their
    own problems and get back on the right track in life; school uniform
    policies

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    and tough truancy policies, like so many California communities I've
    seen have implemented in a way that has increased learning in the
    schools and diminished crime beyond the schoolyard. There are more
    things we can do in this way, and we must all continue to do it.
        We have a responsibility to reform the welfare system. I'm sure
    you've all seen the big debate about welfare in Washington. Let me just
    say that we have been working for 3\1/2\ years on that through a
    provision of existing law which allows the President to say to any State
    in the country that presents a plan to move people from welfare to work
    and to require them to move from welfare to work, you can get around all
    the Federal rules and regulations if you're doing that.
        But let me ask you, as you see this debate unfold in the next few
    days, to think about your own family and ask yourself, ``Well, what do I
    really want to change in the welfare system?'' I think to answer the
    question you have to say, ``What do I want for poor people in America;
    how would I like for them to be able to live?'' And I think what we want
    for them is what we want for middle class families and, indeed, for
    upper income families in America. We want people to have strong families
    and successful work lives. We want them to succeed when they go to work
    and when they're working at raising their children. And we don't want
    them to have to choose. We want them to do both. And that's exactly what
    we want other families in America to do as well, success at home and
    success at work. And if we have a system that undermines either one,
    America is weaker because of it.
        So we have worked hard. We've got 75 percent of everybody on welfare
    now under welfare-to-work experiments in a way that enables them to
    continue to support their children when they leave the welfare rolls and
    go onto the work rolls. And that's what we ought to want for every
    American. There are 1.3 million fewer people on welfare today than there
    were the day I became President. This will work. We can move people from
    welfare to work if we do it in the right way.
        The other big part of this is that people who owe it ought to pay
    their child support. When I became President we were collecting $8
    billion a year in child support; now we're collecting 11 billion, a 40
    percent increase. But you need to know that if every person in this
    country who owes support for their own children is legally obligated to
    pay it and is financially able to pay it, if they paid it all tomorrow,
    tomorrow morning there would be 800,000 fewer women and children on
    welfare in the United States. So that's a big part of this and a big
    part of why we need national legislation to reform the welfare law.
        So we're working hard with the Congress to try to get a welfare
    reform bill out so we can cover all the States, all the people and have
    even tougher child support enforcement, especially for the cases across
    State lines. But remember when you hear this debate and you hear people
    propose certain things, ask yourself, ``What do I want for those
    families, and don't I want for them the same thing I want for the
    families in my neighborhood and the families of America, success at home
    and success at work?'' And I think if we think about it that way we'll
    make the right decisions.
        Finally, let me say we have a responsibility to finish the work of
    balancing the budget, but to do it in a way that is consistent with our
    values and our long-term interests, which is, in my view, taking care of
    the health care needs of seniors, people with disabilities, poor
    children; making sure that we continue to invest in education and
    protecting the environment and other things that are critical to our
    future; making sure we do not increase the burdens on the hardest
    pressed working families. But we can do that, and I am committed to it.
        And lastly, we have a responsibility to maintain the national
    defense and to continue to be the world's strongest force for peace and
    freedom. As we enter the--near the end of the most successful drawdown
    in our history, our military readiness has never been higher. We
    continue to have the best equipped, the best trained, the best prepared
    military in the world. And we must always have that. Whether we're
    standing down aggression in the Persian Gulf, restoring democracy in
    Haiti, safeguarding the peace in Bosnia, saving lives in Rwanda, working
    with NATO and our new allies from the former Communist bloc in the
    Partnership For Peace, our service men and women have proven their
    abilities time and time again in the last 3\1/2\ years.
        Our funding and support for them must not falter, first for military
    technology, to meet any new challenges now or in the future and, even
    more important, to support the men and women

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    in uniform. For they are the most precious resource in our military
    arsenal, and we have to be there for them.
        Last year we set aside funds to ensure that military personnel
    received the highest pay raise allowed by law through the end of the
    century. We are committed to maintain and improve the quality of life
    for service members and their families around the globe, including
    better housing, community support, youth programs, and child care. They,
    too, have a right to know that if they're succeeding for us at their
    work, their homes are going to be successful and their children and
    their spouses are going to be taken care of. And that is a very, very
    important part of defense spending in this world.
        There are a lot of things that we have to do for the future. We're
    working in Washington now to raise the minimum wage, to pass the
    Kassebaum-Kennedy bill which will say you don't lose your health
    insurance if you change jobs or someone in your family gets sick. We're
    working hard on welfare reform. I hope that we can strengthen the family
    and medical leave law, which has permitted 12 million working Americans
    to take some time off when they've had a baby born or a sick parent
    without losing their jobs. And I'd like to see more done so that people
    could go to regular doctor's appointments with their parents or their
    kids or go to a parent-teacher conference at school without losing their
    jobs. We've got to make it possible for working parents to succeed at
    work and at home with their children and with their parents.
        I want to make a college education available to every person in this
    country who's willing to work for it. I think we ought to--the most
    important tax cut we could pass in America today is to give people a
    deduction for the cost of college education, their own or their kids'. I
    would very much like to see us make the 2 years of education after high
    school that most Americans now get in community college, I want that to
    become just as universal in the next couple of years as a high school
    education is today. So I propose a tax credit for the cost of community
    college for the next 2 years after high school. That would be a good
    thing to do.
        And finally, let me just mention this last duty. We have a duty to
    respect our differences and to learn to bridge the gaps between us. If
    you look around the world today, what's fueling a lot of this terrorism?
    What caused all the slaughter in Burundi and Rwanda? Why did people who
    live for decades in peace in Bosnia all of a sudden become the sort of
    nagging agony of the entire world, slaughtering each other with reckless
    abandon after having lived in peace together for decades, neighbor
    against neighbor, killing each other? Why can't we fix what's gone wrong
    in the Middle East? Why did Northern Ireland start violence again after
    15 months of peace when they've got the lowest unemployment rate in 15
    years? And when Hillary and I went there, we were mobbed by Catholic and
    Irish young people alike saying, ``We love peace. We don't want to go
    back to war.'' What happened?
        Because throughout history there has been an atrocious tendency
    among human beings to give in to racial, ethnic, religious, and tribal
    hatred. And as your generation helped to ensure victory for us in the
    cold war so that billions of people every day didn't have to get up
    wondering about whether someone was going to drop a bomb on them from
    the Communists or the non-communist world, depending on what side of
    that cold war they lived on, and people were able to relax, too many
    have fallen back into the old patterns of racial, religious, ethnic, and
    tribal hatreds.
        Why do people hate other people who are different from them? Either
    because they think they won't permit them to live as they want to live,
    or more likely, they really need somebody to look down on.
        You know, I guess nobody has a perfect family, but I'll go to my
    grave being grateful for my mother telling me, ``Don't you ever, don't
    you ever feel better because of somebody else's misfortune. You should
    feel better because of what you are and what you do. Don't ever think
    you've got to put somebody else down because of that.''
        But all over the world there are people that will get up tomorrow
    morning and start out the new week defining themselves in terms of who
    they can hate, who they can look down on, who they can hurt. And it is a
    cancer of the modern world. We fight it on its most flagrant basis when
    we stand against terrorism. But we have to also recommit ourselves to
    purging every vestige of it in the United States.
        The United States military has done a better job than any other
    organization in our society, I believe, in opening up opportunities for
    people based on merit, 250,000 new roles for women

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    in the last 3\1/2\ years in the military. I'm proud of that. We not only
    have in General Powell an African-American who became Chairman of the
    Joint Chiefs, we have a record number of officers now reaching the
    general rank who are African-American, Hispanic-American, Asian-
    American, Arab-American, Jewish-American, coming from all kinds of
    backgrounds, in an organization that runs strictly on merit and depends
    upon performance for our very survival. And yet even there--the other
    day at Fort Bragg, one of the centers of our patriotism, the home of the
    Special Forces, African-American soldiers had swastikas painted on their
    doors. We have to work to purge this.
        All of these church burnings--I just learned that over the weekend a
    church in my home State was burned--African-American churches,
    synagogues defaced, three Islamic centers burned--that is the opposite
    of what America is all about.
        When Hillary and I visited our Olympic team and I looked at them, I
    can't help telling you, first of all, I was just bursting with pride.
    And I told them, I said, ``You know, just the fact that you made this
    team should give you great pride and great joy. And you should go out
    among the people of the world here and relish the spirit of peace and
    freedom and equality that exists here.''
        And it was a magical moment. One of the young people said that
    they'd been to lunch the day before and the athletes from South Korea
    and North Korea were sitting at tables next to each other and talking.
    And I thought, shoot, I've been trying for 3\1/2\ years to get them to
    talk, and I couldn't do it. It was a magic moment. I couldn't do it.
        But what struck me about the American team was this. If the American
    team broke up and was just walking in the Olympic Village, you could see
    them and think, well, that athlete is from Africa; that athlete's from
    Latin America; that athlete's from the Caribbean; that athlete's from
    Scandinavia; that athlete's from the Middle East. But they could all be
    Americans, because we are bound together not by our race but by our
    fidelity to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of
    Independence, and our belief that we can all live here in peace and
    harmony and mutual respect.
        So I leave you with that thought. If we meet our responsibilities to
    each other and to our children and to our future, our responsibilities
    to the world, and if we meet our fundamental responsibility to go
    forward together in mutual respect, then our days are going to get
    better and our best days are still to come. You can have an enormous
    influence wherever you live and whatever you do because of your service
    to America in uniform and because of the sacrifice of that service, if
    you will remind your fellow Americans of those fundamental lessons.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note. The President spoke at 1:52 p.m. at the Riverside Hilton Hotel. In
    his remarks, he referred to Thomas A. McMasters III, national commander,
    Disabled American Veterans; and actor Christopher Reeve.