[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000-2001, Book III)]
[November 11, 2000]
[Pages 2523-2525]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 2523]]


Remarks at a Veterans Day Ceremony in Arlington, Virginia
November 11, 2000

    Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. And thank you, Secretary 
Gober, for your many, many years of 
friendship and your service to our country. Thank you, Mr. 
Duggins, for the remarks you made today 
and your leadership of the Vietnam veterans. General Jackson, Superintendent Metzler, Chaplain Cooke. I think we ought 
to give a special applause to Lee Thornton for 
being with us all these years and all the work he's done. [Applause] 
Thank you so much. Thank you. What a faithful friend to America's 
veterans you have been.
    I thank our Defense Secretary, Bill Cohen, and his wife, Janet, for 
being here. And Secretary Slater, General 
McCaffrey, the service Secretaries, other 
members of the Cabinet and the administration, and former Cabinet 
members who are here, General Myers and 
other members of the Joint Chiefs. To the Medal of Honor recipients, the 
leaders of our veterans organizations who have been introduced and who 
do such a fine job. To the veterans and family members, members of the 
Armed Services, my fellow Americans.
    I welcome you all to this sacred place as we again pay tribute to 
the men and women who have stood at the barricades so that we may enjoy 
the blessings of liberty. Here we are, surrounded by the white markers 
that measure the last full measure of their devotion.
    Many veterans died in now-historic places: the Battle of the 
Wilderness, Belleau Wood, Normandy, Iwo Jima, Inchon, Vietnam, Kuwait. 
Many others fought bravely and, thankfully, returned home to live out 
happy, accomplished lives among friends, families, and loved ones. Still 
others remind us that even when America is not at war, the men and women 
of our military risk and sometimes give their lives for peace.
    Three such heroes were interred here just in the past few weeks. 
They were members of the United States Ship Cole, working to preserve 
peace and stability in a region vital to our interests, their lives 
taken on October 12th by a brutal act of terrorism. They are: Hull 
Maintenance Technician Second Class Kenneth Clodfelter, Electronics 
Technician Chief Petty Officer Richard Costelow, and Signalman Seaman 
Cheron Gunn.
    Let us say to their families and to all the families who lost their 
loved ones on the Cole, we are grateful for the quiet, heroic service of 
your loved ones. Now they are in God's care. We mourn their loss, and we 
shall not rest until those who carried out this cruel act are held to 
account.
    We all saw the TV images of the Cole and the massive hole in its 
side right at the waterline. But what many Americans still don't know 
about is the heroism that took place after the attack. What we couldn't 
see was that entire compartments were flooded, hatches blown open, 
doorways bent, parts of the top deck buckled. So, in addition to finding 
and bringing home the dead and the wounded, the surviving crew had to 
save their ship.
    They worked around the clock, some in 22-hour shifts, amid smoke, 
seawater, and twisted steel, with no respite from the desert heat. They 
used their ingenuity to restore the ship's electrical power so they 
would no longer have to bail water by hand, bucket by bucket. Some even 
slept on the deck because the air below was too foul.
    In these incredibly difficult circumstances, one helicopter pilot 
from a ship assisting the Cole wrote these words home: ``I wish I had 
the power to relay what I have seen,'' he said, ``but words just won't 
do it. I do want to tell you the first thing that jumped out at me--the 
Stars and Stripes flying. Our flag was more beautiful than words can 
describe. I have never been so proud of what I do or of the men and 
women I serve with.''
    Soon the Cole will be back home in America for repairs, and soon 
thereafter, she will be back on the seas, serving America--those Stars 
and Stripes still flying. We are greatly honored to be joined here today 
by the commander of the Cole--the captain of the Cole, Commander Kirk 
Lippold; his executive officer, Lieutenant 
Commander Chris Peterschmidt; the Command 
Master Chief, James Parlier; and some 20 
members of their crew. I was honored to welcome them at the White House 
this morning. I would like

[[Page 2524]]

to ask them now to stand and have you welcome them. [Applause]
    There are many appropriate ways to honor not just the crew of the 
Cole but all the men and women who have defended liberty in our military 
service. We honor them first of all, of course, by remembering them and 
their accomplishments, as we do here. Later today I will go to the 
groundbreaking of the World War II memorial to honor the service and 
sacrifice of the greatest generation, those who fought and died to free 
the world from tyranny, totalitarianism, and hate. And we will pledge 
there never to stop trying to build the world for which they sacrificed 
so much.
    We also honor our veterans by cherishing with all our hearts the 
freedoms they paid such a price to defend. If ever there was a doubt 
about the value of citizenship and each individual's exercise of the 
freedom of citizenship to vote, this week's election certainly put it to 
rest. [Laughter] And if ever there was a question about the strength of 
our democratic institutions in the face of healthy and natural political 
argument, it has been answered by the measured response of the American 
people to these extraordinary events.
    We have a Constitution. We have a rule of law. We voted, and now the 
system is trying to figure out exactly what we said. [Laughter] 
Eventually, they will--the system will do that, according to the 
Constitution and laws, and America will be just fine.
    We honor Vice President Gore and 
Governor Bush. We honor all those who 
participated and all those who voted. And I hope they will remind us 
that the next time the polls are open, without regard to our party, our 
philosophy, we should show up because we certainly do count.
    We honor our veterans as well, in Abraham Lincoln's words, by caring 
for him who should have borne the battle and for his widow and orphans. 
Just a few days ago I proudly signed legislation increasing funding for 
the Department of Veterans Affairs by $1.5 billion. These additional 
resources will help our Nation's 24 million veterans, serving more 
patients, ensuring high quality and timely medical care, improving the 
delivery of benefit payments for veterans, increasing compensation for 
disabilities, meeting our national shrine commitment to veteran 
cemeteries.
    We also recently provided a 3.7 across-the-board increase in basic 
pay for the members of our Armed Forces; provided military retirees 
access to prescription drugs with low out-of-pocket costs; and provided 
lifetime health care coverage that will allow military retirees over 65 
to receive affordable, high-quality health care across our Nation.
    Finally, we honor our veterans by meeting our part of the solemn 
compact we have with each and every soldier, sailor, airman, marine, and 
coastguardsman, regardless of the conflict in which they fought, that we 
will do all in our power to find them and bring them home if they are 
captured, missing in action, or fallen on the battlefield.
    Today I am proud to announce that we are bringing home another 15 
sets of remains, heroes from the Korean war. They are en route right now 
from Pyongyang to Hawaii for identification, and we praise God for this 
event.
    Tomorrow I will begin a trip to Asia that will end in Vietnam, and I 
will be the first President to visit that country since 1969. Over the 
past decade we have moved, step by step, toward normalized relations 
with Vietnam, based on one central priority: gaining the fullest 
possible accounting of American prisoners of war and Americans missing 
in action in Southeast Asia. Continuing cooperation on these issues is 
on the top of my agenda for this trip, even as we open a new chapter in 
our relations with Vietnam.
    Our Nation has sought to move forward in developing those relations 
in a way that both honors those who fought and suffered there and does 
right by the missing and their families. We have done so with the 
constant involvement and support of Members of Congress who served in 
Vietnam, America's Vietnam veterans, and their families.
    The result has been tremendous progress, and today, full cooperation 
from the Vietnamese in repatriating remains, accounting for missing 
Americans, obtaining documents, and conducting over 60 joint field 
activities with the Vietnamese to search for our MIA's. As a result of 
that increased cooperation, the remains of 283 Americans have been 
repatriated since 1993.
    On my second day in Vietnam, I will visit a site where Americans and 
Vietnamese have been searching for the remains of an American 
serviceman. We believe it to be the place where Air Force Captain 
Lawrence Evert was downed on November 8, 1967. I am pleased that I will

[[Page 2525]]

be joined at the site by two of Captain Evert's sons, Dan and David. We are honored to have 
them and their sisters, Elizabeth and 
Tamra, with us here today. We thank them, the 
members of the Evert family, for their devotion.
    When Captain Evert's plane was shot down 33 years ago, an airman on 
another flight heard a voice on a radio transmission calling out, ``I'm 
hit hard.'' That hit his loved ones' lives just as hard. Again I say, we 
thank them for their sacrifice, and we thank them for joining us here 
today. Where are the Everts? Would you ask them to stand, please? There 
they are. [Applause] Thank you very much. Bless you.
    The presence of these two fine men on our trip will help us all to make it clear, in 
Vietnam, that our work is not yet finished and that progress in our 
relations depends upon continued cooperation. We will always keep faith 
with these families and do our duty to the past, for we must never 
forget.
    In our national memory, Vietnam was a war. But Vietnam is also a 
country--a country emerging from almost 50 years of conflict, upheaval, 
and isolation, and turning its face to a very different world, a country 
that can succeed in this new global age only if it becomes more 
interdependent and open to the world. This is something we should 
encourage. We should always remember something a great American Vietnam 
veteran and former POW, Pete Peterson, said when he went to Vietnam as 
our Ambassador: ``We cannot change the past. What we can change is the 
future.''
    The future belongs to veterans and their families who deserve all 
the support and answers a grateful nation can provide. It belongs to the 
thousands of ordinary Vietnamese citizens who have helped them in this 
process. It belongs to the Vietnamese-Americans who have come to live 
among us, including right here in Arlington, and who now can finally 
travel home to reunite with their families. It belongs to all the good 
people who have gone to Vietnam to help clear landmines and aid the 
victims of flooding. It belongs to the next generation of Vietnamese who 
want to live in a normal, prosperous country, and to be free to shape 
their destinies and live their faith. It belongs to all those Americans 
and Vietnamese who want to build a common future.
    On this first Veterans Day of the 21st century, the eighth and last 
in which I will have the honor to address you and the people of our 
Nation as President in this sacred place, let us resolve never to stop 
trying to build that better world for which our veterans have 
sacrificed. Let us all draw strength from the long legacy of service.
    When history looks back upon the records of our age and our Nation 
centuries from now, I believe it will be written that once there was a 
great nation of free people who sent their very best young men and women 
out to serve on the frontiers of freedom in uniform. They went forth to 
defend their Nation and its ideals, giving up the comforts and 
conveniences of home. Too many never returned to their families, but 
none who served ever sacrificed in vain. They led lives of great 
consequence, for they kept the torch of liberty burning in the oldest 
democracy on Earth. Each and every one of them were heroes and gave to 
every child born thereafter a precious and irreplaceable gift. And their 
Nation remained eternally grateful.
    Thank you, and God bless America.

Note: The President spoke at 11:45 a.m. in the Amphitheater at Arlington 
National Cemetery. In his remarks, he referred to George C. Duggins, 
national president, Vietnam Veterans of America; Maj. Gen. James T. 
Jackson, USA, Commanding General, Military District of Washington; John 
C. (Jack) Metzler, Jr., superintendent, Arlington National Cemetery; 
Chaplain Jeni Cooke, Director, Chaplain Service, Department of Veterans 
Affairs; Lee Thornton, master of ceremonies; Republican Presidential 
candidate Gov. George W. Bush; and Dan Evert, David Evert, Elizabeth 
Dempsey, and Tamra Brown, children of missing U.S. serviceman Capt. 
Lawrence Evert. A portion of these remarks could not be verified because 
the tape was incomplete. The Veterans Day proclamation of November 10 is 
listed in Appendix D at the end of this volume.