[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 38, Number 46 (Monday, November 18, 2002)]
[Pages 2021-2023]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Veterans Day Ceremony in Arlington, Virginia

November 11, 2002

    Thank you very much. Thank you for that warm welcome. Mr. Secretary, 
thank you for your leadership. Members of my Cabinet who are here, 
distinguished Members of Congress, members of the United States 
military, Joe Burns, veterans organizations which are represented here, 
our veterans, my fellow Americans, thank you for coming.
    We gather this morning to show our gratitude to the veterans of the 
United States Armed Forces. Here and across the Nation, Americans are 
marking this day with expressions of respect for all who have worn the 
uniform of our country.
    This is a day of honor. Yet every day in this National Cemetery, 
family members visit the graves of loved ones, and veterans come to 
honor their lost friends. And nearly every day, in solemn ceremony, 
another veteran is laid to rest at Arlington. This is a place of 
national mourning and national memory. We remember those who served 
America by fighting and dying on the field of battle, and we remember 
those veterans who lived on for many decades to serve America in many 
ways.
    Not every marker in this cemetery bears a name. Near us are the 
graves of Americans from three wars, men known only to God

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but honored by their country and by the guards who stand watch. If 
you're a veteran, you also stand watch over the memory of great events 
and of brave young Americans. You're witnesses to what was gained in our 
wars and what was lost. You carry the fine traditions and values of our 
military, and you share them by example. You have a special place in the 
life of America, and America is proud of you.
    One veteran, a company commander in the Normandy invasion, returned 
many decades later to the cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach. He said, 
``Standing there in appreciation and sadness and long-postponed grief, I 
could only wonder, why not me?'' Millions of veterans have asked 
themselves that same question, and it has helped to shape the course of 
their lives.
    Veterans do not take life for granted. They know that duty and 
sacrifice are more than words. And they love America deeply because they 
know the cost of freedom, and they know the names and faces of men and 
women who paid for it.
    The term ``veteran'' conveys more than a rank held in the past. 
Military service forms priorities and commitments that last for a 
lifetime. Every person who has put on the uniform, whether in time of 
war or in time of peace, has also felt a new sense of responsibility.
    Dwight Eisenhower once recalled the day he began his military 
career. ``The feeling came over me,'' he said, ``that the expression 
`the United States of America' would now and henceforth mean something 
different than it had ever before. From here on, it would be the Nation 
I would be serving, not myself.''
    Long after their honorable discharge, our veterans still symbolize 
what it means to be a citizen. Go to any community in this country, and 
you will find veterans in positions of service and leadership. In so 
many ways, veterans live out the meaning of patriotism and idealism and 
concern for others. Those of us who are the children and grandchildren 
of veterans have seen those qualities up close. Each of us is better 
because of the influence of a veteran, and so is America.
    America must and will keep its word to those men and women who have 
given us so much. Veterans have been promised good health care when they 
are sick and disabled. They must be treated with fairness and respect. 
And to families across this land with loved ones whose fate is still 
undetermined, America owes the fullest possible accounting of our 
prisoners of war and those missing in action.
    Every veteran once stood ready to give all for our country, and they 
know that a true soldier never welcomes war. This Nation loves peace. We 
work and sacrifice for peace. Yet America must always be prepared to 
confront and defeat the enemies of human freedom. And when war is forced 
upon us, we will see it through to victory.
    At this hour, members of our military are serving on the scattered 
battlefields of a new kind of war. In Afghanistan and beyond, they're on 
the trail of killers who brought death to the innocent and war to our 
country. That mission will go on until the terrorists who struck America 
are fully and finally defeated.
    This new kind of war also requires us to confront outlaw regimes 
that seek and possess the tools of mass murder. We will not permit a 
dictator who has used weapons of mass destruction to threaten America 
with chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. This great Nation will 
not live at the mercy of any foreign plot or power. The dictator of Iraq 
will fully disarm, or the United States will lead a coalition and disarm 
him.
    Over the generations, Americans in uniform have defended this Nation 
without seeking to dominate any nation. American troops do not come as 
conquerors but as liberators. We believe in self-government for every 
land, and we believe that freedom is the hope of people of all cultures.
    By standing for freedom today, our military follows in a great 
tradition of courage and faithful service. Free nations are in debt to 
the long, distinguished line of American veterans, and all Americans owe 
our veterans our liberty.
    On this Veterans Day, we honor veterans, and we honor their 
families, and we offer the thanks of a grateful nation. May God bless 
our veterans, and may God continue to bless the United States of 
America.

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Note: The President spoke at 11:35 a.m. in the Memorial Amphitheater at 
Arlington National Cemetery. In his remarks, he referred to Joe Burns, 
president, Blinded Veterans Association; and President Saddam Hussein of 
Iraq. The Office of the Press Secretary also released a Spanish language 
transcript of these remarks.