[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 14 (Monday, April 7, 1997)]
[Pages 455-457]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on the Anniversary of the Aircraft Tragedy in Croatia

April 3, 1997

    Thank you very much. Mr. Vice President, Mrs. Gore, Mr. Prime 
Minister, Mr. Ambassador, to all the members of the Cabinet and the 
administration who are here, all of our distinguished guests from 
Croatia, including the wonderful musicians, members of the diplomatic 
corps, Mrs. Brown, members of the Brown family, and all of you who come 
here as family and friends.
    A year ago, when so many of us gathered in grief at that airplane 
hangar at the Dover Air Force Base, it was one of the longest days of my 
life. And yet I can only imagine how much worse it was for so many of 
you. Well, now it's another April and another springtime. The dogwood 
tree we planted on the South Lawn of the White House last year in memory 
of your loved ones has grown a whole foot taller, and soon it will 
bloom. And so we gather here today going on in celebration but clearly 
not free of sadness--grateful for the lives of those who were lost, yes, 
mindful of our obligation to them to live on as they would want us to 
live, but still a little sad.
    I was searching all of you today, remembering those of you whom I 
saw a year ago,

[[Page 456]]

wondering what had been most difficult for you in the last year and what 
you missed and how once the moment of tragedy passes, the little things 
become so important. It's springtime, and I can't go play golf with Ron 
Brown. We will never shoot baskets again, and he's not here making fun 
of me because I had that stupid accident with my leg. And I miss that. I 
miss seeing the smiles of those young people that worked here at the 
Commerce Department who believed in this country and were totally 
unjaded by the cynical veneer that grips too many people. I miss that. I 
see the children out here and the spouses, and I wonder of all those 
little things that you miss.
    But I can say, we should be heartened by the missing because the 
people we lost enriched our lives with their gifts of love, with their 
gifts of talent. As the Vice President said, they greatly enriched our 
country through their patriotism and their service. And they certainly 
enriched the world through their sacrifice for the cause of peace. As 
Secretary Daley indicated, they have inspired those who are left behind 
in this Department to continue on.
    When Ron Brown became Secretary of Commerce, he revolutionized the 
role of the Commerce Department in our lives, going from rhetoric to 
reality. And every person, public and private and citizen alike who was 
a part of that should feel proud of what happened. He made our passion 
for trade a force not only in our economic life but in our foreign 
policy. He identified not only those 10 great emerging economies that we 
all ought to visit and work with and build bridges to, but as a 
distinguished American columnist noted just a couple of days ago, even 
in place where crises had not passed, he sought to bring the benefits of 
American ingenuity and entrepreneurialism and to prove that you could do 
good and do well at the same time, whether it was in South Africa or 
Northern Ireland or the Middle East, where I note that--and Mr. Arafat 
was here just a few days ago, he took some time out to celebrate the 
opening of a business development center in Gaza named after Ron Brown. 
They thought our trade missions were pretty great, and they thought the 
people that went on them were pretty great.
    And of course, the Balkans. Every person on that plane shared a 
common vision: They all loved America, they all believed in America's 
mission in the world, and they certainly believed in America's mission 
to the Balkans. The dream for which they gave their lives is now slowly 
and surely being realized by people who have, too, lost a very great 
deal. In a country where almost every family, every springtime, can 
remember the terrible pain that so many of you now feel, the divided 
families have been reunited; marketplaces are full of life, not death; 
the lights are on; the water runs; homes and businesses are being 
restored; playgrounds belong to children again.
    So a year later, with your dogwood growing and people in the Balkans 
returning to a more normal life, I cannot ask you to give up your pain, 
but I can ask you to celebrate the lives of those who died on that 
mountain a year ago, to celebrate them in all the ways we do, through 
personal tributes paid by families and communities.
    The Commerce Department has set up a scholarship fund to help the 
children of Commerce employees. There is a high school in White Plains, 
New York, named in honor of Lee Jackson. A scholarship has been 
established for Christina Kaminski, the 13-year-old daughter of Stephen 
Kaminski. The William E. Morton Library opened last fall at the Geneva 
Kent Elementary School in West Virginia. The Monterey Bay Export 
Assistance Center was dedicated to young Adam Darling. The Naomi Poling 
Warbasse Memorial Fund was established at George Washington University 
by her family and friends. The University of Wisconsin has established a 
Charles F. Meissner Memorial Scholarship for students from the 
Washington, DC, area. The New York Times has established the Nathaniel 
Nash Memorial Foundation to support children's education. A New Jersey 
church and YMCA has teamed to create the Walter Murphy Memorial Fund. 
Riggs National Bank has set up a worldwide scholarship for the Buckley 
School in New York in honor of Paul Cushman. And of course, the Ronald 
Brown Foundation was established by Ron's family as a means of carrying 
on his vision of a more compassionate, cooperative, and just world.

[[Page 457]]

    And these are not all the tributes which have come in honor of those 
whom we lost. We also can celebrate our loved ones by knowing that the 
mission of peace and reconstruction they undertook in Bosnia and Croatia 
is being carried on. When they fell, so many of you here, even those of 
you who had experienced painful personal losses, took up a fallen 
standard. Today, with the great outpouring of reconstruction aid from 
around the world, with dozens of American companies working to restore 
the currents of commerce, with the Department of Commerce preparing to 
open the door of its new office in Zagreb next week, the habits of peace 
are taking on. And that's something to celebrate.
    Above all, we can celebrate them by striving to live our lives in a 
way that honors their lives. Whether we're in Government or in our 
military, in journalism or business, let us resolve to serve. When we 
see a child in need, a community in distress, a nation struggling to be 
free, let us resolve to act. Let us resolve to learn from this tragedy 
and work, as so many of you have done, to make our airplanes and our 
airports and air travel safer. Let us resolve to honor those business 
leaders who perished by celebrating the best of American business and 
saying, ``Yes, it can be a good and noble thing, and we should work to 
expand its reach.''
    Earlier today, the conference board in our administration announced 
that we are creating the Ronald H. Brown Award for Corporate Leadership. 
Each year that award will honor America's finest corporate citizens, 
those who do well and do good by serving.
    Above all, let us resolve always to shine a light of hope and 
freedom in the darkness, for the people we lost a year ago did not die 
on a distant mountain because they did not care or did not believe in 
the possibility of tomorrow being better than today. And if we owe them 
anything at all, we owe them our best efforts to make tomorrow better 
than today and to spread hope among our people and throughout the world.
    Tomorrow will be 29 years since Martin Luther King was killed in 
Memphis. When you think of your loved ones, remember him and what he 
said: ``All inhabitants of the globe are now neighbors, the large house 
in which we live demands that we transform this worldwide neighborhood 
into a worldwide brotherhood.'' The people we celebrate today gave their 
lives building that worldwide brotherhood. For the men and women, the 
boys and girls alive all over the world, and those yet to come, it is up 
to us to celebrate them by continuing that noble work.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 3:04 p.m. at the Commerce Department. In 
his remarks, he referred to Alma Brown, widow of former Secretary of 
Commerce Ronald H. Brown.