[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
[September 3, 1996]
[Pages 1471-1475]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to the National Guard Association of the United States
September 3, 1996

    Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was a stunning example of 
Clinton's fourth law of politics, which is, whenever possible, be 
introduced by someone you have known all your life. They are prone to 
exaggerate. [Laughter]
    Thank you, General Thrash and Rose, for being here and for your 
service to our Nation. Thank you, General Freeman, my present Adjutant 
General here in Washington, for escorting me in. Secretary West, General 
Alexander, Under Secretary Dorn, Assistant Secretary Lee, Lieutenant 
General Baca, thank you for your good work. General Philbin, Terry 
O'Connell, Senator Akaka, Representative Wicker. And I'd like to say a 
happy 73d birthday to Lieutenant General Vern Webber. Happy birthday, 
sir. Where are you? [Applause] On you, they look good, those years. They 
look good. Thank you.
    Let me begin by thanking you for dedicating this conference to 
Congressman Sonny Montgomery. Long before I ever entered public life, I 
knew about Sonny Montgomery because he represented my neighboring State 
of Mississippi and because one of my best friend's father served with 
him many years ago and was a close friend of his--in the military, not 
the Congress, served with him. In all of his long career, he has stood 
up for many worthy causes. I suppose he'll be remembered most as being 
the author of the Montgomery GI bill and as being the best friend the 
National Guard ever had.
    I might say that in this political season when I have said I hope 
that we can change the direction of the last several years and make this 
contest one of ideas and not insults, Sonny Montgomery has led an entire 
distinguished political career able to disagree with people while still 
being their friends, able to be forthright in what he believed in 
without demeaning those who disagreed with him. And I will always honor 
him for that, as well.
    Ladies and gentlemen, we come here by pure coincidence at a moment 
when once again our Nation's military has shown its extraordinary skill 
and professionalism in a difficult mission in Iraq.
    Three days ago, despite clear warnings from the United States and 
the international community, Saddam Hussein's forces attacked and seized 
the Kurdish controlled city of Irbil in northern Iraq. This act is part 
of a broad pattern of violence and recklessness by Saddam against the 
Kurds, against other ethnic minorities, against Iraq's neighbors. These 
actions have threatened the stability of the entire region for some 
years now.
    This morning I ordered America's Armed Forces to strike Iraq, 
extending the no-fly zone and destroying Iraqi missile defenses in the 
south to make sure we could safely extend the no-fly zone.
    I want to reaffirm to you what I said to all the American people 
early this morning: Our objectives there are limited, but our interests 
are clear, to demonstrate once again that reckless acts have 
consequences, to reduce Saddam's ability to strike out again at his 
neighbors, to increase America's ability to prevent future acts of 
violence and aggression. These steps are being taken to further all of 
these objectives and the policy of containing Iraq that I have pursued 
for 4 years now, and it was developed before me under President Bush.
    We know that if we do not pursue this policy, we might once again be 
called upon to do more, as we had to do more in Operations Desert Shield 
and Desert Storm. We do not want that to happen. And therefore, I did 
what I did today. I hope you will support the decision of the United 
States.

[[Page 1472]]

    For the last 5 years and clearly again over the last week, I have 
had the opportunity to say to the American people that my vision for our 
country as we stand on the edge of the 21st century is simple but 
profound. I want us to build a bridge to that century that will keep the 
American dream alive for every single person responsible enough to work 
for it. I want this country to come together across all of our divisions 
and not be torn apart, as so many other nations are today. And I want 
America to maintain its role as the strongest force for peace and 
freedom, for security and prosperity in the entire world, well into the 
21st century, into the indefinite future. That is good for us; it is 
also good for the cause of peace and freedom in the world.
    More than anything else, I come here tonight to express the 
gratitude of our Nation to the men and women of the National Guard for 
all you have done to help our Nation build that bridge as the strongest 
force for peace and freedom, security, and prosperity.
    Four years ago, when I spoke to you in Utah, I said that one of my 
proudest duties as Governor was to command the Arkansas National Guard. 
As Commander in Chief of all of our Nation's Armed Forces now, that 
pride has grown even stronger in all the men and women who make up our 
total force, from every service branch of the military, those on active 
duty, and yes, definitely those in the Guard and the Reserves.
    Today America's gratitude to the Guard should be greater than ever, 
for not a day has passed this summer that we could not have looked 
behind the headlines of the moment to find the Guard hard at work. From 
enforcing the peace in Bosnia to mounting an emergency response to 
Hurricane Bertha in the southeast and the Virgin Islands, from building 
roads in Panama to the difficult and heroic work after the TWA 800 
tragedy, the Guard has been on the job.
    During the centennial Olympics, the greatest in the modern history 
of the Olympics, the Guard was there, 11,000 members from 43 States in 
one of the largest domestic missions ever. Of course, all of us remember 
the great performances of Michael Johnson, Kerri Strug, and so many 
others. But the unsung performance of the National Guard upholding a 
tradition of service stretching back 360 years enabled America to put 
its best foot forward. And it, too, deserved a gold medal.
    I have seen for myself in Bosnia and Haiti, as we know from Somalia 
and the Gulf war, the Guard has been an essential part of our military 
success. That is why last month I signed an Executive order authorizing 
the award of a Bronze M to all Guard and Reserve members who serve in 
support of these operations. Last Thursday, Secretary Perry awarded the 
first 14 of these well-deserved recognitions.
    I understand that there are two of the Guard recipients who are here 
tonight who have received this medal--Captain Drew Sullins and Sergeant 
First Class Susan Hurley. If they're here, I'd like to ask them to stand 
and be recognized. Thank you very much. [Applause]
    Now, there are--thank you--I am sure there are others in this room 
who are eligible for this decoration and who will get it. So if you're 
here, I'd like to ask you to stand and be recognized. Please, all of you 
who served, please stand up. Thank you very much. [Applause] Thank you.
    I know something I suspect most Americans don't know and that is 
that service in the Guard also entails real sacrifice. Since I spoke 
with you just 4 years ago, more than 200 Army and Air Guard members have 
died in operational missions and training, including the pilot of the 
Pennsylvania Air Guard A-10 that crashed near here on the Eastern Shore 
just a few weeks ago. We owe all of them and their families a debt of 
gratitude we can never repay.
    To honor their memory and the memory of all those who have 
sacrificed, we must continue to build America strong and secure in the 
21st century, to deepen our alliances, to reduce even further the 
dangers of weapons of mass destruction, to adapt our Armed Forces for 
the changing times and new missions, to stand strong against terrorism.
    Four years ago when I met with you I said that as we reduced our 
forces in the wake of the cold war, a strong role for the National Guard 
and the Reserve made more sense, not less. And we kept that promise. We 
kept that promise. It began with the 1993 Bottom Up Review initiated by 
the man who introduced me to you 4 years ago as the then-chairman of the 
House Armed Services Committee and my first Secretary of Defense, the 
late Les Aspin. And I thank him for his work there.

[[Page 1473]]

    We have kept that promise in the important Guard-Reserve Offsite 
Agreement. Our use of Reserve components has been one of the secrets of 
our success. As we decreased the number of our forces but increased 
their readiness, capabilities, and technological edge, we carried 
through on our pledge to retain the combat role of the Guard. And I 
reaffirm I will not let the Guard become a backup force of last resort.
    Of course, you and I know we all have to work to adapt the Guard for 
the national security demands of the 21st century. I want to thank the 
National Guard Bureau, the Adjutants General, Secretary West, the 
leadership of our active Army for their innovative proposal to redesign 
the role of the eight Guard divisions, to support our national security 
strategy and the total force policy, while always protecting the Guard's 
historic character and tradition.
    I'm pleased to announce that I will request the first funding for 
this redesigned plan in the defense budget to be submitted next 
February--that is, if I get my contract renewed. [Laughter] But I think 
it's important.
    You have kept your commitment to America. And so long as I am 
President, I will do everything I can to make sure America keeps its 
commitment to you. Our military readiness is at an historic high. We've 
increased our original defense spending plans three times in 3 years, 
adding back almost $50 billion to ensure that we have the equipment, the 
training, the quality of life our troops deserve. We're equipping our 
forces with the newest technology, including the F-22 and the F/A-18E/F 
fighters, the V-22 Osprey, and the Crusader artillery system. My defense 
budget increases our funding for weapons modernization 40 percent by the 
year 2000. Our Armed Forces have won wars of the past. They may be 
called upon to win them in the future, and if they are, they must be 
able to win.
    Keeping faith with our men and women in uniform entails more than 
just giving them the means to prevail in battle. It also means providing 
for the quality of life they deserve. We've set aside funds to ensure 
that military personnel receive the highest pay raises allowed by law 
through 2001. I fought against a proposal that would have cut military 
retirement pay. We increased housing allowances and expanded programs to 
support military families who sacrifice for our Nation, just like their 
loved ones in uniform.
    I should emphasize here that I have been especially moved by the 
extra burden on families caused by extra deployments as we have 
downsized the military. And I know that all of you feel for the families 
of our full-time service personnel when they go off on those long 
missions. They deserve all of the support we can give them. And I am 
proud of the fact that the United States military in all of its aspects 
has been as strongly pro-family as it has been. But we have to keep 
working on this because the families should not break apart under the 
strain of people doing their duty to the United States of America. We 
must continue to support them.
    I'm also pleased that 2 years ago I was able to sign legislation to 
strengthen your right to return to your civilian job after serving our 
Nation without losing seniority, status, or pay. That is also very 
important.
    As we move into this new era, you know as well as I do that we 
confront a web of new threats that know no boundaries, the proliferation 
of weapons of mass destruction, organized crime, ethnic rivalries, 
religious rivalries that quickly descend into murder and can spill 
across national borders. Tonight I'd like to talk about two of them in 
particular, drug trafficking and terrorism. Here, too, our Armed Forces 
are on the job, especially the National Guard.
    I was very proud to appoint General Barry McCaffrey, a hero of the 
Vietnam and Gulf wars who led our military antidrug efforts in South 
America, to coordinate our Nation's battle against drugs. We have seen 
to it that the military plays a vital role in this fight. And I'm proud 
that, as General McCaffrey said to me, and I quote, ``The Guard is 
crucial to our campaign to stop drugs from coming into our country and 
to keep our young people from using them.''
    I ask anyone to consider these facts. Last year, the National Guard 
assisted law enforcement officials in seizing hundreds of tons of drugs 
that resulted in more than 90,000 arrests. Guard aircraft flew more than 
35,000 hours in support of antidrug missions. Guard members are manning 
radar systems at remote sites in the Andes essential for cutting the 
flow of drugs from that region. And more than 60,000 volunteers in Guard 
programs are working with almost 6 million at-risk youth.

[[Page 1474]]

    You've come a long way, General, since you started that program, all 
of you. God bless you. We need more of it. And I thank you.
    Just today, we announced that the Navy and the Coast Guard recently 
seized 8,000 pounds of cocaine on a Honduran fishing boat headed for 
America. That's one of the largest drug busts in history. Our military 
helps confiscate more than 100 tons of cocaine every year, cocaine 
otherwise that would be poisoning our communities and our children.
    We're working to hit the drug suppliers just as hard as we can. 
We've helped to bust up the Cali and Gulf cartels in Latin America, 
cracked down on the ring led by the Burmese drug lord Khun Sa in Asia, 
denied assistance to countries such as Colombia that failed to cooperate 
with our counternarcotics efforts.
    In 1994, the crime bill, which was passed amid bitter partisan 
rancor, not only put 100,000 new police on the street and provided for 
banning 19 assault weapons, it also provided for the death penalty for 
drug lords. Congress has consistently--[applause]--thank you. Congress 
has consistently supported these programs, but has provided funding at 
levels less than we requested, particularly for the Department of 
Defense's counterdrug programs.
    We still have the biggest antidrug budget ever, and that's allowed 
us to do a lot of things like increase border patrols along the 
southwest border. The Customs and the Guard working together increased 
drug seizures from commercial cargo 125 percent in 1995. That's the good 
news.
    It still is painful for me that for all we are doing and in spite of 
the fact that drug use among young adults is going down, drug use among 
children, juveniles, people under 18, is still going up. No one quite 
knows why this is true. It is also happening in Canada and many European 
countries. It appears that every few years a group of young people come 
along and once again decide that they aren't dangerous, or if they are 
dangerous, somehow they can evade the risks because, after all, they're 
young and they're going to live forever.
    And that brings me back to the other issue that you work so hard on, 
your work with at-risk children. It is obvious that every single one of 
us who care about this is going to have to work even harder to educate 
our children about the dangers drugs pose. We have to do that. We have 
dramatically increased the safe and drug-free schools program. It's now 
reaching 40 million students in 97 percent of our districts. We have now 
established drug courts across the country because they've proved 
effective in breaking the cycles of drugs and crime. We are fighting 
against any attempts to cut back on the safe and drug-free schools 
program. We are working to pass legislation that would require States to 
test parolees for drugs and send them back to prison if they get back on 
drugs.
    But we have to stop this from happening in the first place. Your 
programs for at-risk kids--think what it means to a child who has never 
had a positive role model to see someone in a uniform who looks like 
them, who comes from humble beginnings, who has made something of his or 
her life, saying ``There is a future out there for you. This stuff can 
kill you. It is not just illegal, it is not just wrong, it can kill you. 
It can kill you in a hurry, depending on what drug it is, or it can just 
rob you of your ability to concentrate over the long run, or rob you, if 
you're a young woman, rob you of your ability to have healthy children. 
They're all terribly dangerous.'' You can have a big input on that.
    And so I hope that when we meet again we'll be able to say that the 
Guard has helped not 6 million at-risk kids but several million more 
than that. I know you have lots to do, but this country's children need 
you. And they will respond to you.
    I'd like to say just a word about terrorism. And I'd like to point 
out that, kind of like the narcotics trade, in an ironic and painful 
way, many of the things we love about this new post-cold-war global 
society of ours make us more vulnerable to the things we hate. We like 
it that we can travel around the world with such great ease. We like it 
that all borders are more open. We like it that we can transfer 
information, ideas, technology, and money across the globe virtually 
instantaneously.
    But the more open our society, the more vulnerable we are to the 
organized forces of destruction. And that is why I have said repeatedly, 
finding a way to deal with terrorism, terrorism from which no one is 
immune--as you saw it from the attack in the subway in Tokyo, you've 
seen it in Great Britain, you've seen it on the continent of Europe, 
you've seen it in Atlanta, you've seen it in Oklahoma City, you saw it 
at the World Trade Center, and you hear about it and it sends chills up 
and down your spine

[[Page 1475]]

when you discover the things that were planned that have been avoided by 
the diligence of our law enforcement officials. We have got to continue 
to work on this. We have got to continue to combat terrorists wherever 
they are. And I believe that we must continue to try to convince others 
to do the same thing.
    We have followed a three-prong strategy:
    First, to rally our friends and allies around the world against 
terror. We did that at the G-7 meeting in France last summer and at the 
Summit of the Peacemakers at Sharm al-Sheikh in Egypt, where, for the 
first time, Arab states, a large number of them, condemned terrorism in 
Israel or wherever it occurred in the Middle East. We are increasing the 
isolation of those who sponsor terrorism by maintaining and 
strengthening our sanctions against Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Sudan.
    Second, here at home, we're working hard to give law enforcement the 
tools they need to combat modern terrorism, through the antiterrorism 
bill that we pushed through Congress after Oklahoma City, and with new 
legislation to help us stop money laundering and tighten our borders 
against terrorists.
    Third, we're working very hard to increase our security at airports 
and on airplanes, doing more hand searches and machine screening of 
luggage, requiring preflight inspection for every plane flying to or 
from the United States, examining all standard aviation security 
practices so that we can make further changes to increase security.
    I might say since most of you probably flew into Washington to 
attend this meeting, you may have noticed some delay in air travel. I 
hope you didn't but if you did, it's worth that to make all Americans 
safer when they board airplanes and others when they come to our 
country.
    This will be a long, hard struggle. It will require discipline, 
concentration, flexibility, the ability to learn and continuously 
change. But the most important thing it will require is the same level 
of will that the American people and the American Armed Forces brought 
to bear in all of our armed conflicts and through the long twilight 
struggle of the cold war. We have to understand that this may well be 
the 21st century's curse. And we know that as long as human nature is 
what it is, there will be some amount of misconduct in this old world, 
some amount of wrongdoing and some amount of downright evil. And as long 
as that's around, the United States will be a target, and the United 
States must take the lead in stamping it out and standing against it.
    Let me say in closing, I have seen enormous numbers of Americans 
face to face in the last 10 days because of the events that you know 
well. I expect I've looked into the faces of right around a half a 
million people, riding on the train and on the bus, going to the big 
meetings and passing through the small towns early in the morning and 
late at night.
    This is a very great country because the citizens of this country 
are good people. And most of our citizens just want to live good, 
decent, honorable lives, have work that has dignity, raise the children 
the best they can, enjoy their places of worship and their associations 
with their friends and neighbors and their family. You have made that 
possible through your dedication. You who are willing to defend our 
Nation make it possible for all those little kids to stand out along the 
side of the road or railroad tracks and wave the American flag and know, 
even before they're old enough to explain it, that it really means 
something special to be an American.
    About 200 years ago, when our Nation stood at the dawn of the 19th 
century, John Randolph of Roanoke, Virginia, one of the great 
congressional leaders of his time, said it best. Randolph was a great 
supporter of the militias, out of which this organization grew. He knew 
the power of the love of liberty. On the floor of the House in January 
of 1800, John Randolph said, ``When citizen and soldier shall be 
synonymous, then you will be safe.''
    It was true then, it is true now, and you have made it true. Thank 
you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 7:59 p.m. in the ballroom at the Sheraton 
Washington Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Melvin C. Thrash, 
Arkansas adjutant general, and his wife, Rose; Richard C. Alexander, 
president, Edward J. Philbin, executive director, and LaVern E. Webber, 
former executive director, National Guard Association of the United 
States; Lt. Gen. Edward Baca, USA, chief, National Guard Bureau; and 
Terrence M. O'Connell, chairman, Reserve Forces Policy Board. The 
Executive order of August 6 on the Armed Forces Reserve Medal is listed 
in Appendix D at the end of this volume.