    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 46 (Monday, November 21, 1994)]
    [Pages 2373-2375]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Remarks at the American Cemetery in Manila, Philippines

    November 13, 1994

        President and Mrs. Ramos, Secretary Christopher, Ambassador
    Negroponte, Mr. Perrine, Mr. De Ocampo, Colonel Barth; Mr. Quashan,
    thank you for that wonderful introduction; distinguished members of the
    Philippine Government, distinguished members of the diplomatic corps,
    especially to the young students and to the Peace Corps volunteers that
    are here, and most especially to the Philippine and American veterans
    here in attendance: Hillary and I are deeply honored to be with you
    today. I was told this morning that I am the first sitting President
    since President Eisenhower to visit this hallowed site, and it is a
    profound honor for me and for our entire party.
        We gather to honor and to remember. In this place only a few miles
    from the ocean, named for peacefulness, we always remember the fury of
    war, the 17,206 American and Philippine men and women who are buried
    here, arrayed in the long arcs I saw this morning as if still deployed
    in our defense, the 36,281 more whose names are engraved on these
    magnificent marble walls. Nowhere else outside the United States are so
    many American heroes honored and interred.
        Some of their brethren, heroes from American units and Filipino
    units, thankfully are still here with us today. Time has diminished none
    of our pride in them. They are among the finest people our nations have
    ever produced. Their presence here reminds us of the meaning of courage
    and determination. Their example will inspire us for ages to come. On
    behalf of a grateful nation and an increasingly free world, I thank
    them, and I ask all the Philippine and American veterans of World War II
    who are here to stand and to receive the thanks of all of us. [Applause]
        We can hardly imagine today the perils that met these young men in
    the full bloom of their lives. They left families and loved ones and
    home to go to places they never heard of to confront dangers they never
    imagined. They had to liberate territory bit by bit, enduring constant
    fear of ambush in island jungles. At sea they stayed on course in the
    face of a new terror: the suicide dive bomber. On American carriers, our
    pilots took off, never knowing if they would find their ships again.
    This ordeal engulfed the Philippines, our oldest friend in Asia, a
    nation that has done so much to enrich the United States.
        On the same day that Pearl Harbor was bombed, the American garrison
    in the Philippines was attacked. Troops under General MacArthur dug in
    for battle, not far from here, on the Bataan Peninsula and on
    Corregidor.
        Our joint forces in Bataan resisted for 4 months. Then, low on
    ammunition, weakened by hunger, reduced by sickness, they could fight no
    more. Their nightmare was just beginning. A death march to prison camps
    and a horrifying internment claimed the lives of about 25,000 Filipinos
    and Americans. Corregidor became the last bastion.
        Just before coming here, I had the honor of touring the island with
    the President and with a group of our veterans, including a man named
    Bill Martin, who is with us here today. His road in the war was long,
    from Bataan to Corregidor to a prison camp in Manchuria. Today marks the
    first time Bill Martin has been on the rock since he was captured there
    50 years ago, the first time he has seen this place where so many of his
    friends and comrades lie at rest. Welcome back, Bill Martin, and thank
    you.
        I saw on Corregidor the remains of many evidences of Americans and
    Filipinos sharing the familiar diversions of everyday life, the

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    fields where the games were played, the remnants of three movie
    theaters. But the most important thing they shared was a ferocious love
    of freedom.
        When a shell fragment cut the halyard on the embattled garrison's
    flagpole it was a Philippine civilian named Panorio Punongbayan who
    braved the shelling with two Americans to catch the flag before it
    touched the ground and, under fire, to retie the line and raise the flag
    again. Their commander, General Wainwright, said what they had done was
    not only courageous but helped the battled rock's morale beyond any
    words. A month after Bataan fell, time ran out for Corregidor, as the
    sky over the island turned to lead with 16,000 shells a day. Relief was
    impossible; freedom's last foothold seemed lost.
        Soon--we forget this now--Japanese forces controlled land and water,
    stretching from Alaska's Aleutian Islands to Wake Island near Hawaii,
    from New Guinea, then menaced Australia. With our fleet devastated at
    Pearl Harbor, and Hitler ruling Europe from the English Channel to the
    Russian heartland, free people everywhere stood in fear.
        In this, one of our Nation's darkest hours, our troops and our
    leaders might have given up, but their spirits never failed. An enlisted
    man who survived the fighting and hunger, the death march, and 3 years
    in prisoner of war camps, gave voice to that spirit and to its ultimate
    source. Almost incapable of walking when he was liberated, he was still
    unbowed and said, ``When a man allows God to sustain him, he can go
    through hell if he has to. That's what I did. Yes, sir, I refused to
    die.'' That man, Corporal Ishmael Cox, is still unbowed and refusing
    today, living in Missouri.
        After the occupation, tens of thousands of Filipinos and a handful
    of Americans fought the most valiant guerrilla effort in the Pacific
    theater. Meanwhile, American forces, with Australians and New
    Zealanders, began the agonizing crawl, island by island, back across the
    Pacific. They fought their way through the Solomons, the Admiralty
    Islands, Palau; their battles at Midway, Guadalcanal, and Iwo Jima are
    now legends.
        Driven by General MacArthur's determination that our friends in the
    Philippines should not have their freedom delayed, Americans put to
    shore at Leyte in 1944, with an invasion force larger than that of the
    opening phase of Normandy. In the surrounding gulf, more than 800 United
    States ships stretched across the horizon and, there, fought and won the
    largest naval battle of all time. General MacArthur did return and so
    would freedom.
        Countless horrors still lay in the way, including the butchery of
    house-to-house fighting in Manila. The savagery turned the Pearl of the
    Orient into another Warsaw. But the tide turned once and for all.
        When he returned to Corregidor, General MacArthur saw the now-famous
    old flagpole still standing, and he ordered, ``Hoist the colors to the
    peak, and let no enemy ever haul them down.''
        These heroes, those who rest here and those still among us, gave
    everything so that all of us might be free. Here in the Philippines, 1
    million people, 1 in every 17, gave their lives. But the spirit of
    Bataan and Corregidor did not die. The defense of democracy, the
    determination to spread freedom, the refusal to bow before aggression,
    are principles at the core of our identities as nations today.
        Those who were once our foes, Japan, Germany, and Italy, are now our
    friends, because they, too, now embrace these ideals. These same
    principles saw us through the long ordeal of the cold war, and today,
    they unite us with our allies, including our friends here in the
    Philippines, who stand with us in the constant march of freedom and
    democracy.
        It is fitting that we commemorate these heroes today not only
    because of the common cause that joined our peoples 50 years ago but
    because the great wave of democracy that has swept the world in our time
    began here in the Philippines. Eight years ago, when President Ramos and
    others stood up bravely, they, too, showed the defiant courage of
    Bataan, so did the crowds that filled the streets here when people power
    blossomed and Corazon Aquino led the Philippines into a new era. What
    happened here, all of you in the Philippines should know,

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    strengthened the magical current of democracy that was then sweeping all
    around the world. It encouraged events in countries like Poland,
    Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Russia.
        We mark now the fifth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall
    just this past week. A new generation of democracy has come into the
    world in South Africa, South America, much of Asia, parts of the Middle
    East. What you did here encouraged the spirit of freedom for the world,
    just as surely as your defiant courage in World War II buoyed the forces
    of freedom then. We thanked you then; we thank you now.
        Like those we honor today, we must still stand against aggression
    and cede to no country the right to dominate its neighbors, its region,
    or its hemisphere. The United States looks to the Pacific not as an
    ocean that separates us from Asia but as a body of water that unites us
    with Asia.
        To fulfill the vision of those who fought here, we must, and we
    will, remain engaged with the Philippines and elsewhere. We will make
    the most of peace and partnership and, as President Ramos said, the
    opportunities for prosperity. But if threats arrive, we will confront
    them as well.
        On the Korean Peninsula, there has been such a threat in the
    possible proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The agreement we
    reached with North Korea to freeze and then to dismantle North Korea's
    ability to build nuclear weapons was achieved in concert with South
    Korea and Japan. But it furthered the cause of security in the
    Philippines and, indeed, throughout all of Asia.
        Our final responsibility is to remember what those young people did
    here a half a century ago and to remember that it is undying. Today,
    when I got out with Hillary at the cemetery, the first grave I visited
    was that of a soldier from my home State. He came from a town where I
    have spent many happy days, a town like so many little towns that dot
    our wonderful country and form the backbone of America. Private First
    Class William Thomas, on April 22d, 1945, was not quite 23 years old
    when his unit entered the Zambales Mountains 85 miles from here. They
    were assigned to help clear the enemy from Luzon. He was a long way from
    his hometown of Wynne, Arkansas, that day.
        The enemy was well dug in when his company attacked along a ridge,
    and he was hit by an explosion that blew off both his legs below the
    knees. But he refused medical help and instead continued firing until a
    bullet knocked out his gun. Still he kept on fighting, throwing his
    grenades. His heroism allowed his unit to capture that position. The
    price of his unit's victory was William Thomas' life. For his valor, he
    received the Medal of Honor, America's highest military honor, one of 28
    recipients so remembered here.
        William Thomas, for your sacrifice and for that of all others here
    laid to rest, your Nation remembers you and is forever grateful. And you
    serve us still, as do all the names and graves of those here
    commemorated serve us still, for nothing, nothing protects us and our
    freedom like the vigilance of memory.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at approximately 1:30 p.m. In his remarks, he
    referred to John D. Negroponte, U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines; Paul
    Parrine, U.S. World War II veteran, who gave the invocation; Col.
    Emmanuel De Campo, president, Veterans Federation of the Philippines;
    Col. Wayne M. Barth, USA, Director, Joint Military Assistance Group; and
    William H. Quashan, World War II veteran.