    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 1 (Monday, January 11, 1999)]
    [Pages 1-2]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

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    The President's Radio Address

    January 2, 1999

        Good morning. As we celebrate this last New Year of the 20th
    century, I want to speak to you about the debt we owe to those who make
    every season a season of peace for America, the men and women of our
    Armed Forces.
        Almost 1.4 million Americans are serving our country on active duty
    today. Nearly a quarter million of them are overseas, doing what needs
    to be done as no one else can, whether that means thwarting Iraq's
    ambition to threaten its neighbors or the world with weapons of mass
    destruction or standing watch in Korea on the last fortified frontier of
    the cold war or safeguarding the peace in Bosnia or helping our
    neighbors in Central America or the Caribbean dig out from natural
    disasters or simply giving us the confidence that America will be
    forever strong, safe, and secure.
        We rely on our Armed Forces because this is still a dangerous world.
    We're proud of them because they are the best in the world. And we
    remember today what makes them the best--not just the quality of our
    weapons but the quality of our people in uniform. Their skill,
    dedication, and professionalism are unstinting, unquestioned, and
    unmatched.
        When we give our service men and women a mission, there is a
    principle we must keep in mind: We should never ask them to do what they
    are not equipped to do, and we should always equip them to do what we
    ask. The more we ask, the greater our responsibility to give our troops
    the support and training and equipment they need. As Commander in Chief,
    I have no higher duty than this: to give our troops the tools to take on
    new missions, while maintaining their readiness to defend our country
    and defeat any adversary; to make sure they can deploy away from home,
    knowing their families have the quality of life they deserve; and to
    make certain their service is not only rewarding but well rewarded, from
    recruitment to retirement.
        I'm confident our military is ready to fulfill this mission today.
    Our troops continue to execute complex and dangerous missions far from
    home with flawless precision, as we've just seen in the Persian Gulf.
    Our challenge is to retain the ability to do this as we carry out our
    entire defense strategy.
        For this reason, we asked Congress to add $1.1 billion to this
    year's budget to keep our readiness razor-sharp and to improve
    recruitment. And Congress did. I've also worked with our military
    leaders to ensure their highest readiness priorities are reflected in
    our budget request for the year 2000.
        The budget I will submit to Congress for next year will provide an
    increase of over $12 billion for defense readiness and modernization
    through a combination of new spending and budgetary savings. This is the
    start of a 6-year effort that will represent the first long-term
    sustained increase in defense spending in a decade.
        We want our Armed Forces to remain ready to deploy rapidly in any
    crisis, and that is what this effort will assure, by funding joint
    exercises, flight training, badly needed spare parts, and recruiting for
    critical positions. We want our forces to remain the best equipped in
    the world into the next century, and that is what this effort will
    assure, by paying for the next generation of ships, planes, and weapons
    systems. It will also enable our military to play its part in meeting
    emerging threats to our security such as terrorism and proliferation. It
    will help us to do right by our troops by upgrading and replacing aging
    equipment, barracks, and family housing. It will include a military pay
    raise of 4.4 percent, the largest since 1982, a restructuring of paid
    reward performance, and the reinstatement of military retirement
    benefits that were taken away over a decade ago.

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        We must undertake this effort today so that our Nation will remain
    strong and secure tomorrow. We must do it as well because we have the
    most sacred obligation to those who accept dangers and hardships on our
    behalf.
        They are our sons and daughters, husbands and wives, friends and
    neighbors, from cities and towns all over America. We must give them the
    support they need to keep doing their jobs well and to keep coming home
    to America, safe and sound.
        Thanks for listening, and happy New Year.

    Note: The address was recorded at 10:55 a.m. on December 30 in the
    Roosevelt Room at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on January
    2. The transcript was made available by the Office of the Press
    Secretary on December 31 but was embargoed for release until the
    broadcast.