REMARKS BY GOVERNOR TED KULONGOSKI

Sunday, August 28, 2005

 

Thank you Lt. Col. Hagen. And a special thank-you to my fellow veterans. It is a great honor for me to be asked by General Soyster and the Department of Defense to say a few words about a generation of Americans who literally saved the world.

 

President Kennedy, who served in the Pacific and was a decorated World War II veteran, used to say: To whom much is given, much is expected. Today, I say: By whom much was sacrificed – much is owed.

 

Words alone, of course, can never repay what our nation owes the men and women who survived the Depression, fought and won the most lethal war in history – not as conquerors, but as liberators – and then used America’s economic and political power to defend freedom and rebuild a shattered world. Even a speechmaker of President Lincoln’s stature, in honoring the dead of Gettysburg, had to confess: "The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."

 

The same is true for what World War II veterans did at Pearl Harbor, Sicily, Normandy, and the Ardennes; at Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and in the Philippines; in the skies over Europe and Japan; on the high seas – and under them; in POW camps and liberated concentration camps; and in countless other World War II battles – on land, sea, and air – where the seeds of American heroism were planted and grew.

 

So the real tribute to you – the men and women who fought and won World War II – cannot come from me or anyone else standing at a podium. Words are simply inadequate to the task. Instead we must look to what emerged from the ashes of that war to fully understand the greatness of the Greatest Generation.

 

I find it interesting that America waited almost six decades to build the World War II Memorial in Washington. The Vietnam and Korean memorials were actually built first. I understand why many World War II vets think they had to wait far too long to see a permanent memorial on the Washington Mall to their heroism and sacrifice. There is absolutely no question that our entire nation should have started saying thank you much sooner.

 

Still, I believe deep in my heart that the last 60 years bear witness to the achievements of the World War II generation far better than any stone monument – no matter how beautiful – ever could. What other generation of Americans can claim credit for taking America from the depths of the Depression to the most powerful economy the world has ever known?

 

What other generation of Americans can claim credit for ending armed conflict among the great powers of Europe?

 

What other generation of Americans can claim credit for rebuilding our former enemies and turning them into strong democratic allies?

 

What other generation of Americans can claim credit for the Berlin Airlift – which sent the unmistakable message that we would fight and win the Cold War.

 

What other generation of Americans can claim credit for changing higher education from a privilege for the few to an opportunity for the many?

 

What other generation of Americans can claim credit for sparking pluralism, building prosperity, and safeguarding peace – all at the same time?

 

And what other generation of Americans can claim credit for teaching the rest of us the values of hard work, personal integrity, quiet courage, saving for the future – and honoring the past? These are the real monuments – the lasting monuments – to you and every member of the generation that sacrificed so much 60 years ago.

 

Steven Ambrose wrote what might be the definitive book about D-Day. At the beginning of the book, he makes a very interesting observation, which I think captures something fundamental about who we were as Americans 60 years ago. He notes that Hitler believed that democracies were too soft to defeat fascism – and that our soldiers, born into freedom and raised on the belief that individuals have inalienable rights, would simply be no match for an army motivated by fear and hate.

 

But of course our shared values of liberty and equality, tolerance and openness, democracy and economic opportunity proved to be far stronger than tyranny in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. I emphasize the word "shared" because it wasn’t just soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and the Merchant Marine who carried these values in their hearts – it was all Americans, from school children, to athletes and entertainers, to riveters who built Liberty ships like the Star of Oregon and the Meriwether Lewis right here in Vancouver and Portland.

 

This may be the most important contribution of the World War II generation – the deeply held conviction throughout those four difficult years that every American had a part to play in winning the war. Yes, each of you sitting before me today – whether you were in harms way or stateside – believed in shared sacrifice. What does that mean?

 

It means we went to war as a country – not as a relative handful of volunteers and their families. We asked every citizen to give up something – not just the men and women on the frontlines. We made the war easier to afford by collectively buying war bonds – by enduring rationing stamps and growing community gardens. We expanded our industrial base sending millions of Americans back to work. We put aside partisan battles – and united together against our common enemies. And we bore as one nation the terrible burdens of war – young and old, men and women, farmer and city dweller – and shared as one nation in the God-given blessings of victory.

 

As most of you know, in my youth I was a Marine and still remain a Marine. But now I’m Commander in Chief of the Oregon National Guard. So I have spent much of my life surrounded by men and women for whom "duty, honor and country" are not mere words – they are words that move the soul.

 

They are also the tie that binds one generation of American veterans to every other generation. That’s why your service – and courage under fire – is a legacy inherited by veterans of Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and now Iraq and Afghanistan. Just as you inherited that legacy from the veterans of Concord and Yorktown, Antietam and Gettysburg, and the battles of the Seine and the Argonne Forest.

 

It is also why I consider it a great privilege to honor not just your service, but the service of our troops who are in harms way today, and to attend all of the funerals of Oregon soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

When it comes to our men and women in uniform, I do not believe in politics. I believe in a clear mission, a winning strategy, shared sacrifice, an unchanging definition of victory – and a very warm welcome home. That’s what America’s leaders – both civilian and military – gave you more than half a century ago. Today’s brave hearts in Iraq and Afghanistan deserve nothing less.

 

There is another important connection between you and future veterans. Here is how somebody who knew something about fighting for his country put it: "The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional as to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation." Those are the words of George Washington. And they are as true today as they were the day he wrote them.

 

You – and all veterans of World War II, whether or not they lived to see this 60th anniversary commemoration – deserve every laurel, every honor, every tribute, and every word of praise this nation can bestow. But you also earned and deserved the GI Bill, your veteran’s benefits, the best medical care our nation can provide, and survivor benefits for your spouses. In other words, we shouldn’t be repaying real service with lip service.

 

It does not honor you. And it sends the wrong message to young people who are considering putting on the uniform to defend our country – and its principles. And that is what really matters. America must always have men and women who are willing – in times of great national peril – to walk away from the comfortable lives they knew, the families they loved, and the futures they planned.

 

You took that walk – risking everything you had, including your lives – to save everything our nation stood for. It wasn’t easy. I know that. Friends died along the way. And dreams did too. But because of your physical and moral courage – you went even further than the soldiers President Lincoln honored at Gettysburg, giving not just our nation – but the world – a new birth of freedom.

 

We must not forget that your sacrifice made the world we live in – a safer place. We must not forget that your commitment to the principles of liberty, equality and opportunity--made America the nation our founding fathers dreamed and wrote about. And we must always remember that your undying belief in duty, honor and pride in America makes us a better people.

 

Time takes its toll on even the Greatest Generation. But time will never take away our memories of what you did – or the love we feel for who you are. They will be as enduring as America itself.

Thank you. And God bless you.