[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
[November 23, 1999]
[Pages 2145-2147]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks to American Troops at Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo
November 23, 1999
The President. Thank you. Hello.
Audience members. Hello!
The President. From the reception you gave my daughter, I thought he was going to
say I was Chelsea's father, too. [Laughter] Thank you.
I want to thank all of you for making us feel so welcome. I want to
introduce the people who came with me: our Secretary of State, Madeleine
Albright; our NATO Commander, General
Wes Clark; my Chief of Staff, John
Podesta; National Security Adviser Sandy
Berger; and four Members of the United
States Congress, Representative Jack Kingston
from Georgia, Representative Peter Deutsch
from Florida, Representative Carolyn Maloney from New York City, and Representative Eliot Engel from New York City; and Chelsea.
Let me say that we are honored to be with you. We thank you for your
service. We're looking forward to eating a big, early Thanksgiving
dinner with the men and women of Task Force Falcon.
I want to salute some of the troops for what they have done at Camp
Bondsteel and Camp Monteith. And also I want to thank those from other
nations in our multinational Brigade East. I want to visit you now, at
this season of Thanksgiving, not only because you're doing a hard job a
long way from home but because here we've got a lot to be thankful for.
Thanks to you, we have reversed ethnic cleansing. We have a
successful military mission which was brilliantly executed, with no
combat casualties. And now, we have a chance, not a guarantee but a
chance, to work with these folks
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to build a lasting peace in the Balkans. Now that Operation Allied Force
is over, there is a new struggle underway, and Camp Bondsteel is on the
frontlines. Operation Joint Guardian will protect and deepen the peace
we are working so hard to make permanent.
You certainly haven't wasted any time. The story of Bondsteel reads
like something out of the settling of the Old West. Not long ago, this
was a hayfield. Soon after NATO came into Kosovo, it became a beehive of
activity. Between the Army Engineers and the Navy Seabees----
[At this point, audience members interrupted the President with cheers
and laughter.]
The President. Yeah. Well, anyway, somewhere--[laughter]--somewhere
between the Army Engineers and the Navy Seabees, you move over a half a
million cubic yards of earth. You brought enough gravel to lay a two-
lane road all across the State of Missouri. In less than 5 months, you
built 160 sea huts, a chapel, a gym, a hospital, mess halls, a PX, a
barber shop, and an aviation area.
I want to salute a few of the responsible units. Don't be shy: the
Headhunters of the Engineer Brigade 1st Infantry Division; the Blue
Devils of the 3504 Parachute--I just want to note for the press that the
Blue Devils of the 3504 Parachute Infantry Regiment are also known as
``devils in baggy pants''--the Steel Tigers of the 177 Armor Battalion;
the Bone Crushers of the 2d Platoon Bravo Company; the Blue Spaders of
the 126 Infantry Regiment; the Hellcats of the 299th Forward Support
Battalion; the Eagles of Task Force 21 Aviation Regiment; the Spartans
of the 793d Military Police Battalion; the Dagger Brigade of the 1st
Infantry Division; the Navy Seabees of Battalion 3.
[Unit members cheered as they were mentioned.]
The President. You did pretty well.
Let me say to all of you, I know that a lot of your assignments are
still dangerous. I appreciate the hard work you have done to protect all
the people of Kosovo, including the Serbs. I appreciate your pursuit of
local thugs, like the mad mortar-man. I appreciate your constant
mediation between people who have a long way to go toward
reconciliation.
I'm told that children routinely say, ``We love you, United
States.'' Well, they love the United States because they love you,
because we gave them their freedom back; we gave them a chance to go
home; we're giving the children a chance to have a different life than
their parents have lived.
But let me just say this--I say this every time I speak to a group
of American service men and women overseas--the biggest problem in the
world today, with all the modern technology, all your fancy computers,
everybody getting on the Internet, all the new discoveries in science,
the biggest problem in the world today is the oldest problem of human
society. People tend to be afraid of people who don't look like them and
don't worship God the way they do and come from a different place. And
when you're afraid of somebody, it's just a short step to disliking
them. If you dislike them, it's a short step to hating them. If you hate
them, it's a short step to dehumanizing them. And once you do that, you
don't feel bad about killing them. Now that's what this whole deal is
about.
And you see this problem in our inability to solve the peace in the
Middle East, although we're getting there. But it's been a long time
coming. We may be about to have a final breakthrough in the Irish civil
war--been 30 years coming. Almost 800,000 people were killed in 100 days
in Rwanda by people of 2 different tribes, one hacking the others to
death with machetes; they hardly had any guns at all.
And if you strip it all away, the number one problem in this old
world today is the problem of Bosnia, the problem of Kosovo: It's racial
and ethnic and religious hatred and dehumanization.
All you've got to do is look around the room today, and you see that
our military is a stunning rebuke to that. This is the American idea in
flesh and blood, all of you. You come from all different backgrounds,
all different races, all different religious faiths, all different walks
of life. And you're here working together as a team. You can appreciate
your differences. You can even make fun of them. You can even make jokes
about them because you know that your common humanity and your shared
values are even more important than your differences.
Now, the most important thing you can do, besides keeping these
people alive and having security, is to teach that to the children and
to their parents by the power of your example and your own testimony.
Because I am telling you, what they're going through here today is an
example, but by no means the only example,
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of the worst problem the world faces on the eve of the new millennium.
And it violates everything we in America stand for. And the power of our
weapons could win the military battle in Kosovo, but the peace can only
be won by the human heart.
And every day they see you, every day these little old kids see you
working together--even if they don't speak our language, even if they
never met any African-Americans or Hispanics before, even if they don't
know any Asians before--they can see; they have eyes; they'll get it.
You just show up, and you be yourself, and you do what you're supposed
to do, and you treat them right. The power of your example will show
them that they do not have to be trapped in the pattern which led to the
slaughter of a quarter of a million people in Bosnia, 2\1/2\ million
refugees there, almost a million refugees here, though we acted quicker,
and because we acted quicker, they all came home.
But now that they came home, they've got to learn how to win the
peace. And I say that to the other nations who are here represented. I
want people to see Americans working with you. I want these children to
know that the world is a better place when people are proud of their own
race and ethnicity and religion, but respectful of others; when they are
secure enough in who they are that they don't have to put anybody else
down, hurt anybody else, torch anybody else's church or mosque just to
feel that they matter. This is the most important issue in the whole
world today.
And just by getting up every day, going to work, keeping the kind of
morale that you manifested today with your cheers and your pride, you
are a rebuke to the biggest problem in the world, and the power of your
example can do more than anything else to help us to win the peace.
Thank you, God bless you, and Happy Thanksgiving.
[At this point, a gift was presented to the President.]
The President. You all know I have an important job, because I'm
your Commander in Chief, right? [Cheers] Well, tomorrow, because I'm
also the President and I have broad executive authority--I get home at
10 o'clock tonight, we're all dog-tired, but I've got to get up and go
to work tomorrow because I have to do something that every President has
been doing since the 1920's: I have to pardon the Thanksgiving turkey.
And they bring me a big turkey, and we let one go so we can eat all the
others. [Laughter] And they put this turkey in a petting zoo for
children to see in the Washington area. Anyway, it's always a great
deal. I'm just saying, when I go into the office tomorrow to pardon the
turkey, I'm going to take the falcon and put it on my desk so all of
America can see, when my desk is on television, what you're doing.
Thank you.
Note: The President spoke at 1:13 p.m. in the base theater/festival
tent. In his remarks, he referred to Brig. Gen. Craig Peterson, USA,
Commander, Task Force Falcon, who introduced the President; and Gen.
Wesley K. Clark, USA, Supreme Allied Commander Europe.