[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 45 (Monday, November 15, 1993)]
[Pages 2325-2327]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Wreath-Laying Ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, 
Virginia

 November 11, 1993

    Thank you very much, Secretary Brown, General Brady, distinguished 
leaders of our veterans' organizations, Secretary Aspin and General 
Shalikashvili and the leaders of our Department of Defense and our 
military services, and to all of you, my fellow Americans.
    Today we gather to honor those who have rendered the highest service 
any American can offer to this Nation: Those who have fought for our 
freedom and stood sentry over our security. On this hillside of solemn 
remembrance and at gravesides and in veterans' halls and in proud 
parades all across America, today we join as one people to appreciate a 
debt we can never fully repay.

    Every American who ever put on this Nation's uniform in war or peace 
has assumed risks and made sacrifices on our common behalf. Each of the 
1.6 million men and women now in our forces today bears our common 
burden. This day belongs to all of them, to all who have protected our 
land we love over all the decades and now, over two centuries of our 
existence. From the minutemen who won our independence to the warriors 
who turned back aggression in Operation Desert Storm, it belongs to 
those who fell in battle and those who stood ready to do so, to those 
who were wounded and those who treated their wounds, to those who 
returned from the service to friends and families and to the far too 
many who remain missing.

    We honor our veterans on this day because it marks the end of the 
First World War. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month 
there crept an eerie silence across the battlefields of Europe, and 4 
years of unbelievable destruction then came to an end. Today on the 75th 
anniversary of that Great War, it is fitting for us to recall and salute 
those from every service who contributed to the allied victory, embodied 
today by the fine figure of Mr. Coolbaugh who stood here and received 
this medal.

    Our victory in that ``war to end all wars'' was a great test of 
whether our Nation then could reach out and become involved in the rest 
of the world. Many of the soldiers who fought in that war, including the 
men whom we honored here today, were born in another century, a time in 
which America felt secure on this great and vast continent protected by 
two oceans.

    We entered World War I knowing that we could no longer run from the 
rest of the world. But in the end, while that war proved our strength, 
it did not prove our wisdom, for within the span of a short generation 
after it, we neglected during a careless peace what had been so dearly 
won in a relentless war. We turned our backs on the rest of the world. 
We ignored new signs of danger. We let our troops and arms fall out of 
readiness. We ne- 

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glected opportunities for collective security in our own national 
interest. We succumbed to the siren's song of protectionism and erected 
walls against peaceful commerce with other nations. Soon we had a Great 
Depression, and soon that depression led to aggression and then to 
another world war, one that would claim a half million American lives.

    Now, once more we stand at the end of a great conflict. The cold war 
is over. The lesson America won in the Second World War led us to 
contain communism in the cold war and led to the greatest peacetime 
victory the world has ever known, the collapse of the communist system 
and the Soviet empire. Our long and twilight struggle against that 
expansionist adversary has ended. And even as the world marvels at this 
achievement, once again history is about to take the measure of our 
wisdom.

    Our generation is being asked now to decide whether we will preserve 
freedom's gains and learn freedom's lessons. We are being asked to 
decide whether we will maintain the high state of readiness that stood 
behind our victory or fritter away the seed corn of our security, asked 
whether we will swell the global tide of freedom by promoting democracy 
and open world markets or neglect the duty of our leadership and in the 
process and, in the withdrawal, diminish hope and prosperity not only 
for our own people but for billions of others throughout the world who 
look to us.

    One of the greatest honors we can pay to our veterans on this 
Veterans Day is to act with the sufficient wisdom necessary to preserve 
the gains they have won through their hard service and great sacrifice. 
To honor those who served in Europe and Korea and Vietnam and the 
Persian Gulf, in scores of posts at home and abroad, let us today 
resolve we will not shrink from the responsibilities necessary to keep 
our Nation secure and our people prosperous.

    We also honor our veterans today by noting the outstanding service 
being rendered around the world at this moment by the most talented and 
the best prepared group of men and women who have ever worn our Nation's 
uniforms. This morning I had the privilege and the honor to host for 
breakfast not only the leaders of our Nation's veterans' organizations 
but also 17 of the Army Rangers, Special Operations forces and 
infantrymen who recently returned from our mission in Somalia. 
Afterwards, I invited them and their commanders into the Oval Office 
where we sat and had a visit. I was profoundly impressed by them and by 
their service.

    Not enough of our fellow Americans know the real story of what 
happened during the terribly difficult firefight in Mogadishu on October 
3d, a fight in which they demonstrated great ability, success, and 
unbelievable valor. During that raid, a Blackhawk helicopter was downed. 
Despite this setback, the Special Operations forces conducted their raid 
with precision, apprehending 20 people suspected of involvement in the 
murder of United Nations peacekeepers in the Somali mission. At that 
point, they could have pulled back to safety, confident in the success 
of their mission. After all, what they had come to do was over. But they 
share an ethic that says they can never leave a fallen comrade behind. 
So some 90 of them formed a parameter around the downed aircraft in an 
attempt to retrieve the wounded and the dead. They found they could not 
dislodge the body of one pilot, but they refused to leave him behind. 
They braved hours and hours of the fiercest enemy fire. Eighteen of them 
ultimately perished; over 70 were wounded. They exacted a terrible toll 
on their adversaries, casualties 10 times as great, fatalities 20 times 
as great.

    I want to note their presence with us here today. I want to thank 
them, and I want you to let them know that we know they did their 
mission well and that we are proud of them. Please stand up. Here they 
are. Please stand up. [Applause] We owe it to them and to their 
colleagues to ensure that our forces remain the best trained, the best 
equipped, the best prepared in the world. And we will do that. We also 
owe those who serve in our Nation's military the assurance that what 
they have done for us will not be forgotten. We owe to our veterans a 
health care system that is there for them when they need it and provides 
high quality and compassionate care. We owe to our veterans a measure of

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the security they have provided to us. And that is why, earlier today, I 
was proud to sign a bill which helps to increase the retirement benefits 
of our disabled veterans.

    And as we remember all of those whom we see today and those whom we 
can imagine who are serving for us or who have served, we must never 
forget those who were never accounted for. That obligation never dies 
until we know the whole truth. Just this month, we secured an agreement 
from the Chinese to return the remains of three American aviators whose 
cargo plane crashed there in the Himalayas in 1943. Our Nation has a 
particular responsibility to pursue the fate of our missing from the war 
in Vietnam. On Memorial Day, I pledged here that our Government would 
declassify and make available virtually all documents related to those 
who never returned from that war and that I would do it by this day, 
Veterans Day. I can tell you that last evening, the Secretary of Defense 
completed that task. That promise has been fulfilled. I know that our 
Government, our Nation together have a solemn obligation to the families 
of those who still are missing to do all we can to help them find 
answers and peace of mind.

    Every year, our humble words on Veterans Day can never do justice to 
the sacrifices made by our veterans, by those who returned and those who 
did not, by those who live among us today and those who live only in our 
memories. We know we can never repay the debt, but still we try because 
we know their sacrifices should be in our hearts every day.

    So on this day let us simply repeat to America's veterans what is 
inscribed on the medals that have been awarded to thousands of those who 
served in World War I: A grateful nation remembers.

    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 11:35 a.m. at the Tomb of the Unknowns.