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Posted 9/04/02: (A Memorable Article About a Naval Hero)

JAMES STOCKDALE (USNA ‘47)

Fort Worth Star Telegram 090102 (C09-02)

Copyright 2002 Star-Telegram Newspaper, Inc.

Fort Worth Star Telegram

September 1, 2002, Sunday FINAL EDITION



SECTION: SUNDAY LIFE; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 4231 words

HEADLINE: JAMES STOCKDALE;

The vice admiral was branded a fool after the 1992 vice-presidential debate. But this scholar and heroic former POW who suffered years of torture never needs to ask himself, "Who am I?"



BYLINE: JEFF GUINN; Star-Telegram Staff Writer



BODY:

A vulgar person . . . never looks for either help or harm from himself, but only from externals. The condition and characteristic of a philosopher is that he looks to himself for all help or harm.

-- from Enchiridon by Epictetus (A.D. 55-135), the favorite stoic philosopher of Adm. James Stockdale

CORONADO, Calif. -- Retired Vice Adm. James Bond Stockdale, now 78, didn't enjoy the experience of running for vice president in 1992, which he says he did as a favor to third-party presidential candidate Ross Perot. Like millions of others, Stockdale especially recalls the televised vice-presidential debate that October, when he began his remarks with the rhetorical questions, "Who am I? Why am I here?," and then stumbled through the rest of the program.

"Afterward, lots of people decided I was an idiot," Stockdale recalls as he sips a cup of coffee in the dining room of his home in a San Diego suburb. "Things were said about me. Conclusions were drawn. I suppose some would have had their feelings hurt badly. But I had philosophy and experience to fall back on, so I went right on with my life. Other people can't hurt you inside, which is where it counts, if you don't let them."

That belief makes Stockdale the antithesis of almost everyone else who has inadvertently become well-known for a negative reason. He says he's surprised more people don't feel the same way.

"As we learn from the book of Job in the Bible, life isn't fair," Stockdale observes. "From that, from the philosophers I had read, like Camus, Pascal, Kant, Hume and my personal favorite, Epictetus, there's the message of relying on yourself, on your own sense of honor. 'Stoicism' is the proper term. It gives me, as it would give anyone, perspective."

That, and seven years in a North Vietnamese prison, where extensive physical torture became a ritual, and where Stockdale gambled his own life to force better conditions for his fellow prisoners. His back was broken, one leg was shattered beyond repair, his shoulders were torn from their sockets, and his hearing was irreparably damaged. After his release, the citation read by President Ford as he presented Stockdale with the Medal of Honor also noted the "near mortal" wounds Stockdale inflicted on himself to prove to his captors that he wouldn't break no matter what they did.

Compared with that, being called names in 1992 was nothing. These days, though, Stockdale certainly wouldn't mind if his fellow citizens knew a little more about him than a few bumbling remarks in a TV debate he didn't even know about until three days before the cameras rolled.

Stockdale walks very slowly. His left leg hasn't bent at the knee since Sept. 9, 1965, when his plane was shot down during a bombing mission against a bridge near the North Vietnamese city of Thanh Hoa. His hearing is adequate when his hearing aid works properly. Age causes him to "lose a word sometimes," but his steely blue eyes still fix on visitors, and his scarred body is trim in a white knit shirt and khaki slacks.

Stockdale and his wife, Sybil, live in the same house they bought decades ago when Stockdale was stationed at the naval base in Coronado. It is decorated with a few mementos of Stockdale's military career and lots of family memorabilia. Mrs. Stockdale is ill and unavailable to be interviewed. All four Stockdale sons are schoolteachers; judging from framed photos, there are many Stockdale grandchildren.

Stockdale's Medal of Honor is in a box upstairs, not displayed in a prominent place for visitors to see.

"That would be like bragging," Stockdale says. "I wouldn't want to do that."

He's also initially reluctant to discuss his political fiasco with Perot. Stockdale's fascination has always been with things military, rather than political.

"The whole thing with Ross was an accident," he says. "I've put it behind me. My training was to make decisions, to do what was right rather than what was expedient. I never learned to talk in those cagey ways politicians have, seeming to say something without committing yourself to any real opinion. What I wanted to say in that debate was something like, 'Here's who I am. Ask these other fellows, Quayle and Gore, to give you examples from their lives that demonstrate who they really are, instead of just repeating things other people told them they ought to say."

To understand how he was able to cope with the aftermath of the disastrous vice-presidential debate, Stockdale says it's important to understand him. And that understanding is found in memories of seven years' captivity in Hanoi's infamous Hoa Lo prison.

Jim Stockdale was born in 1923, the only child of a schoolteacher and the vice president of a china factory in Abingdon, Ill. His explanation of how he ended up at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., illustrates why Stockdale would never, ever have been able to function effectively in the 30-second sound bite world of politics. He takes 15 minutes to answer the question, beginning with a description of his father's struggle to educate himself, and then how his mother insisted he learn to play the piano well and he did, winning competitions against older kids because no one should ever try less than his best, that was his mother's most important rule -- and on to how, admiring his parents as he did, he asked them what experiences had served them best, and his father claimed to have learned his most valuable life lessons during a hitch in the Navy.

"So it was natural for me to want to emulate that," Stockdale concludes, and is suddenly silent. He's answered the question as best he can, and is ready for the next one.

His uncle, Stockdale notes, was a World War I fighter pilot. Young Jim wanted to emulate him. Mom Stockdale wanted to know why her only child thought he could be a pilot, when there was so much risk involved.

"I told her I had good coordination, and that I felt I could make good, quick decisions," Stockdale says. "I didn't think of being a pilot as just flying around in the sky. I went in expecting I would end up fighting at some point. See, that was the attitude for young men back then -- it's your privilege to enjoy freedom, so be prepared to fight for it."

He did, serving for his first three years after graduation aboard ships, then achieving his dream of becoming a fighter pilot like his uncle. There was a break in 1961-62 when the Navy sent him to Stanford University for graduate work, a traditional career step for officers the service has earmarked for its highest ranks and responsibilities. At Stanford, professor Philip Rhinelander introduced Stockdale to the works of many ancient philosophers, and his 28-year-old pupil gradually became mesmerized by what he read.

"Wisdom doesn't have any no-good-past-this-date, where it turns sour," Stockdale says. "I saw, with fellows like Epictetus, that you could apply ideas that were thousands of years old to modern problems. Mostly, I was gradually taken with the idea that we can't always control the circumstances we find ourselves in but we can always control how we respond to them."

Soon after Cmdr. Stockdale returned to active service, he found himself heading fighter squadrons in Vietnam. In August 1964, he led the first American airstrike into North Vietnam after Congress gave wider war powers to President Johnson. Stockdale scoffs today at persistent beliefs that these raids sought anything other than military targets -- "On mine I know, because I was involved in putting them together." In September 1965, Stockdale was shot down over the North Vietnamese countryside while on a mission to destroy a key bridge.

"When I ejected, I came down in a rural area, a farm community," Stockdale recalls. "I felt so good because I wasn't hurt, but then I saw this guy wearing a pith helmet and a whistle. He blew the whistle and sicced this gang on me, and they beat me for about five minutes before he blew his whistle again. He came over and motioned for me to get up, but I couldn't because my left leg was poking out over here."

Stockdale's knee was virtually destroyed. He was on crutches for his first two years in prison, and after his eventual release, American doctors told him it was "too screwed up" to be even partially fixed through surgery. His back was injured, too. His captors hauled him up, put some rudimentary bandages on the wounds they'd just inflicted, and, for three days, drove their prisoner around in what the semiconscious Stockdale thought were circles. Finally, he was brought to Hoa Lo prison, the legendary "Hanoi Hilton."

"They hauled me in and dropped me in front of the commissar, who spoke pretty good English," Stockdale says. "He said, 'OK, you're Stockdale. When do you think Jenkins will come in?' Jenkins was one of my fliers. They wanted to throw me for a loop by using his name. After a while, we POWs figured out the Viet Cong would go over to Hong Kong, buy the newspapers to get the names of those who'd been shot down and comments from those who weren't. So they'd read something about Jenkins and could drop his name on me. So simple, so foolproof. And that's the first I saw of how they were trying to play us."

Hoa Lo, Stockdale says, "was a political prison, not really a prisoner-of-war camp. They weren't just keeping us there until the war was over. They were trying to use us for their own purposes, which were making us confess to their ridiculous propaganda. They had a small stage built downtown, and when somebody gave in and would say what they wanted, they'd take him there and make a show of it. And every time that happened, it hurt America, hurt our country."

As senior officer among the POWs, Stockdale automatically became their leader. He was appalled by what he discovered.

"Some people who, prior to my arrival, had been senior, had not betrayed their trust as highest-ranking officers, but they had been too silent," Stockdale recalls. "They did not say to the others, 'Do not in any way cooperate with our captors.' They simply sat and watched things happen. I announced I was now running things. I didn't get any dissent."

Since outright war had never been declared, it was not certain whether the Viet Cong were required to treat their prisoners according to the Geneva Convention -- no torture, sufficient food, only requiring prisoners to recite name, rank and serial number.

The Viet Cong, Stockdale says, used torture and anything else they could think of to coerce POWs into "confessing" war crimes. His first message to his fellow prisoners was simple.

"I told them that we must take control over our own destinies," Stockdale says. "Just like Epictetus and others taught, though I didn't throw those names around. I said we had to accept the idea of being tortured, that the experience wouldn't be as bad, probably, as the fear of torture before it even happened. We had to show these people that we wouldn't be forced to do something we all knew was wrong."

As their leader, Stockdale says, he had to set an example. He was tortured many times -- usually with "the ropes. That was where they'd tie our arms behind our backs and pull tight, pretty much dislocating the shoulders. Then they'd push your head down between your legs, by putting their foot on the back of your neck. The pressure would cut off circulation to the upper body. Sometimes, for variety, there were the leg irons, torture irons that twisted you. Of course, it hurt. Bones were sometimes broken. But the idea was not to do what they demanded no matter how much it hurt, because after a while they'd have to get the message that torturing us served no purpose. Only then would they stop doing it."

Early on, Stockdale was made a particular target of his captors. He was the POW leader; it was obvious he was counseling defiance. He was informed one day that he would be taken downtown to read a propaganda statement.

"A guard we called the Rat handed me a safety razor in my cell, so I could clean myself up and look presentable," Stockdale recalls, speaking as calmly as though he were describing a Sunday picnic with his family. "They were always careful not to torture us in ways that would look too obvious, like punishment to the face. They wanted it to seem like we were making these statements of our own free will, which of course would have been ludicrous. At any rate, I took that razor after he turned away and cut swaths down my head until I had the blood running down my shoulders."

Shocked, Stockdale's guards dragged him into an interrogation room. He would still be taken out to make a statement, they told him; they'd just staunch his head wounds and make him wear a hat. After checking to see there were no sharp objects in the room that Stockdale could use to cut himself further, they left to find the hat.

"While they were gone, I picked up a mahogany stool and bashed my own face with it," Stockdale says. "Both my eyes swelled up and closed. When they came back in with the hat, they couldn't believe it. They couldn't take me out in public now because anyone seeing it would think they'd beaten me to make me cooperate. One of 'em said to me, 'What will we tell the commissar?' and I said, 'You tell him the commander of the POWs decided not to go downtown.' "

As punishment, Stockdale spent much of the next two years in solitary confinement, usually in leg irons. He was tortured more than a dozen times. Undeterred, he communicated with other prisoners by tapping out code on cell walls with tin cups. Whenever he was allowed to talk directly with other Americans, he instructed them to resist any form of cooperation with the Viet Cong.

"We had a few who didn't see it that way, but most did," Stockdale says.

Always, he recommended that the POWs try to find something to laugh about.

"It wasn't like Hogan's Heroes or anything, but we did have our funny moments," he says. "One favorite time involved a guy named Jim Mulligan. We always suspected a lot of the guards didn't speak much English; they'd only pretend to understand it. The Rat was one of those. Now, what they'd do was to give us papers to read with some of their left-wing propaganda on it. You'd read it, they'd ask your opinion of it, and if you said it was crap -- which it always was -- then they might beat you. Well, the Rat gives Jim a paper with that crap written on it, Jim reads it, the Rat asks what he thinks and Jim says, 'I think it's ridiculous.' So the Rat gets mad, don't remember if he hit him that time, but he yells about how Jim has no right to talk to a North Vietnamese officer like that. 'Tell me again what you think,' the Rat yells, and Jim looks him in the eye and says, 'I'm very sorry, I shouldn't have said it was ridiculous. I should have said it was sheer bull----.' And the Rat says to Jim, 'That's better. Keep a civil tongue in your head.' Oh, we laughed about that."

In 1969, North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh died. The guards at Hoa Lo had tears in their eyes as they interacted with the POWs. Torture sessions grew even more frequent. Again, Stockdale was a particular target.

"I considered myself the leader," he recalls. "I had to retaliate, had to show them we Americans were not going to be broken."

After a particularly nasty session, Stockdale was left alone in a cell that had a window. Struggling to his feet, staggering on his bad leg, he smashed the window and used a long shard of glass to slice his own arms. The object, he says, was to impress on his captors that no amount of suffering would make him cooperate.

"Eventually, I passed out in a pool of my own blood," he says. "I came to the next morning about 4 a.m. They brought in a cot, made me lay on it and put a guard with a rifle by the foot of the cot so I couldn't do anything else to myself."

Later that morning, the commissar came to inform Stockdale there would be an investigation of the American's actions. The POW commander was placed back in solitary confinement. A few months later, the prison had a new commissar. Incidents of torture ceased almost completely. Stockdale had finally made his point.

"They didn't give us as much crap after that," he says quietly, gazing out his window and perhaps seeing the Hoa Lo interrogation chamber instead of his flower-filled back yard. "We'd shut off the torture machine."

When the war finally ended in 1973, Stockdale and his fellow Hanoi Hilton POWs came home. He reunited with his wife, Sybil, and four sons. Though his name briefly made national headlines, few Americans wanted to think about Vietnam anymore, and public fascination with a heroic prisoner of war quickly faded. Stockdale had a brief tour of duty as a naval wing commander, but his left leg still couldn't bend, making it hard to clamber into a cockpit and practically impossible to bail out in case of emergency. So he became president of the Naval War College, then president of The

Citadel, and finally signed on as an analyst at Stanford University's Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. He devoted himself to writing books, giving lectures and designing college courses about morality and war -- the responsibilities of soldiers to their countries and to themselves.

Then, in 1992, Ross Perot called.

"I was in my office at Hoover one afternoon when the phone rang," Stockdale recalls. "He said, 'Hey. Jim, this is Ross. You know, I made a fool of myself on Larry King's TV show the other day and said I'd run for president. To get on the ballot in about 25 states, I have to have a vice- presidential candidate. Would you let me use your name as a stand-in, just for a couple weeks until I can find a politician to run with me?' "

Stockdale knew Perot, though not well. He'd been impressed to learn of Perot's outspoken support for POWs during the Vietnam conflict and was thoroughly unimpressed with most politicians he'd encountered.

"So I said 'OK,' figuring it would only be for a few weeks and knowing I wouldn't actually have to give speeches or do any kind of campaigning," Stockdale says. "I liked the idea of Ross or any nontraditional guy upsetting the usual political balance. Some time goes by, and all of a sudden there are these notices about a TV debate between the vice-presidential candidates, and I'm listed as one of them. It's only a couple of days away. So I call Ross and say, 'Hey, I'm off the hook on this debate thing, aren't I?' and he says, 'Oh, the invitation came three weeks ago and we accepted for you. Weren't you told?' "

Dan Quayle and Al Gore had speechwriters and advisers to help them bone up on issues. They rehearsed sound-bite responses. Stockdale had no staff. His only speeches had been made at military conferences and in classrooms, where taking 45 minutes to offer thoroughly reasoned opinions was routine.

"I had never even had a political conversation with Ross Perot," Stockdale says. "So I couldn't talk about what he believed in. I guess I could have refused to go on that debate, but someone had accepted in my name and I felt that obligated me."

Beatings during his POW days had robbed Stockdale of much of his hearing. Just before the televised debate began, his hearing aid conked out. Sometimes, when he seemed to stumble answering questions, it was because he wasn't entirely certain what he had been asked.

"Even if I had heard everything, I had no practice giving glib, short answers like those other two," Stockdale says. "When I started with 'Who am I? What am I doing here?' my thought was to explain the difference between me and professional politicians, that I had some real-life experience that they didn't. But I got cut off, and it sort of went downhill from there."

Former Speaker of the House Jim Wright, who watched the debate, says "there's no doubt Admiral Stockdale gave the impression he was a gabby old man who didn't know what he was doing. That sounds harsh, I know, and it wasn't fair. But it was the result."

The next day, Medal of Honor recipient James B. Stockdale was a national laughingstock. But the comedians who mocked him in monologues had no idea he was laughing at himself.

"Afterward, some of the other boys at Hoover and I would go out to lunch, and we'd try to figure out what things I'd said that were the unintentional funniest," Stockdale says. "I guess the eventual winner was that one line of mine, 'I think I'm out of ammunition here.' "

Perot eventually took 18 percent of the popular vote, the best showing by an independent party presidential candidate since Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose candidacy in 1912. Stockdale went back to the Hoover Institute. Though strangers might have made fun of him, he says, Hoover colleagues and old Navy friends never did. He lost no sleep regretting how he'd performed. Regret, he notes, is simply a waste of energy.

"If, sometimes, people would recognize me and poke fun, I would just remind myself that I controlled my own life," Stockdale says. "Character is permanent; events are transient. But I will say this -- because I would have approached things pragmatically, because I would have favored substance over slickness, I think I would have made a pretty good vice president."

Stockdale has retired from the Hoover Institute. Back home in Coronado, he's not exactly a celebrity. His number's right there in the phone book.

"If anyone wants to talk to me, I'm here," he says. But very few strangers ever show up on his doorstep. Mostly, anyone knocking is an old military friend.

Though not a man given to cracking jokes, Stockdale's quirky sense of humor is evident in another way. Over the course of his career, he attended lots of events with presidents and afterward was sent the requisite signed photos of himself -- with Ford, Reagan and George W. Bush (there are none from the elder Bush, but then, the Perot/Stockdale ticket opposed him during the 1992 campaign). All these photos are prominently displayed in a downstairs bathroom.

If there's a current frustration in Stockdale's life, it's that important world events are unfolding and he isn't helping his country.

"I've had experience in learning how those from foreign cultures may hate us, and some success in proving to them that their hate will not deter Americans," Stockdale says. "If I should be asked, by the current president or our military leaders, to offer some thoughts, some suggestions, I'd certainly do it. But I guess they're not going to ask."

As a visitor prepares to leave after hours of conversation, Stockdale considers a final question: In his own heart, how would he like to be remembered? How does he want people to think of him?

"I guess I'd like to be thought of as a guy who tried to help his country," Stockdale says after several moments. "Maybe as someone who never shirked battle, who realized it was an honor to be an American and tried to live up to the responsibilities of that honor at any personal cost."

That's who he was. That's what he was doing here.

Posted 3/05/02: (A Memorable Speech by John McCain)

>  Speech by John McCain Forrestal Lecture Series - U.S. Naval Academy
>  October 9, 2001
>
>  Thank you. It's a great privilege to be again asked to participate in the
>  Forrestal Lecture Series. I'm always very glad, and somewhat amazed, to
>  find myself in distinguished circumstances at the Naval Academy,
considering
> my less than distinguished career here. It's a great country, my friends.
No
> one knows that more than an old midshipman who was once in a neck and neck
> race for the honor of being anchorman. I'm very relieved if later in life
I
> might have done something to give the Academy reason to hope, against all
> odds, that it would not always be embarrassed to claim an association with
> me. I am also quite proud that a distinguished graduate and great supporte
of
> the Academy, a great patriot, and a great friend, John McMullen, joins us
> this evening. John's presence makes your kind invitation to me an even
> greater privilege.
>
>  I had intended to use this occasion to share a few of my thoughts about
>  the reorganization of our armed forces as the administration began to
> outline its plans with the release of the Quadrennial Defense Review last
> week. It was, of course, an extremely important subject before September
> 11th, and it is all the more so now. The threats to the security of the
> United States, to the very lives and property of Americans, have changed
in
> the last decade. The attacks of September 11th have made more urgent the
> already urgent task, of reorganizing our military to make sure that we
have
> the people, weapons and planning necessary to ensure not only the success
of
> our world leadership, international peace and stability and the global
> progress of our values, but to safeguard the survival of the American way
of
> life.
>
>  In the months ahead, no task before the Administration and the Congress
will
> be more important or require greater care and deliberation than making the
> changes necessary to strengthen our national defense in this new,
uncertain
> era of world history.
>
>  I take my responsibility in this important work very seriously, and I
intend
> to take part in the debate, using all the judgment, however modest, that
> experience has granted me. But I have decided to wait for a later occasion
to
> more thoroughly address the subject.
>
>  Because of the attacks on our country, and because of the presence here
of
> so many who have or had the privilege of wearing the uniform of the United
> States, I thought it more appropriate to speak tonight directly to the
> midshipmen, and to speak of more enduring themes than defense
modernization,
> as timely and important as that subject is. I thought I might share some
> thoughts about the privilege, the duty and the honor, that was once mine,
and
> is now yours.
>
>  On September 11, our country was attacked by a depraved, malevolent force
> that hates every value Americans hold dear. It was a terrible blow that no
> one alive today will ever forget. But we will survive it. Our enemies will
> not. I have every confidence that the American people and their government
> will remain resolute in waging the war that has been declared on us. We
have
> been attacked and we are fighting back. And woe to anyone who dares oppose
us.
>
>  We have now begun the first phase of military operations against our
>  enemies. As President Bush has explained, this war will have many
>  components, diplomatic, financial, intelligence. It will include both
>  overt and covert operations. But American military power is essential to
our
> success. There should be no confusion about that. Nor should Mr. bin Laden
or
> anyone who wishes this country harm have any doubt about what America can
> accomplish by force when we are obliged to use it. They wrongly believed
they
> could destroy the way we live our lives. They are now just beginning to
> understand just how radically their lives are going to change.
>
>  The professionalism and power of our armed forces, stronger by a
magnitude
> of ten than any other nation on earth, is something only a fool would
> underestimate. When it is brought to bear in great and terrible measure it
is
> a thing to strike terror into the heart of anyone who opposes it. No
mountain
> is big enough, no cave deep enough to hide from the fury of American
military
> power when we are committed to victory. We must not shrink from using it,
in
> whatever measure necessary, to defeat our enemies, wherever they are.
>
>  I agree that we will have to use force wisely to avoid inflaming the
hatred
> for America that our enemies have been allowed to sow in the Islamic
world.
> Toward that end, we should try hard to minimize noncombatant casualties.
If
> we can use means other than force in some countries to achieve our goal,
then
> we should. But we must keep our attention firmly fixed on our primary
goal.
> Our goal is to vanquish terrorism, not reduce it, not change its
operations,
> not temporarily subdue it, but vanquish it. All other concerns are
secondary.
> It is a difficult, demanding task we have undertaken. We must expect and
> prepare for our enemies to strike us again before they are vanquished.
Some o
> f this war will be fought at home. And the casualties that we will suffer
may
> again include civilians. We must keep our nerve at all costs. We should
use
> no more force than necessary, but no less than necessary. Fighting this
war
> in half measures will only give our enemies time and opportunity to strike
us
> again. We must change and change permanently the mindset of terrorists,
those
> who give them sanctuary and support, and those parts of Islamic
populations
> who believe the terrorist conceit that they will ultimately prevail in a
> conflict with the West, that America has not the stomach to wage a
> relentless, long term, and, at times, ruthless war to destroy them.
>
>  We are at war, a new kind of war as the President has rightly called it.
It
> might not involve nations clashing in conventional sea, land and air
battles,
> although it is possible that it could come to that. I should add that I
don't
> consider the operations in Afghanistan that commenced on Sunday to be a
war
> against a nation, much less a war against the Muslim world. The Taliban
and
> Al Queda are not legitimate representatives of that country, they are
> terrorists, period, who represent evil, not nations. But whatever this
war's
> unique attributes, it is war nonetheless, and like all wars it will
require
> sacrifice and hardship and casualties. And like all wars it will occasion
> great heroism.
>
>  This war will still be underway, in one form or another, when some of
you,
> perhaps all of you, receive your commissions. Eighty-thousand sailors and
> marines have already been summoned to war. Over three dozen warships,
> including the carriers Enterprise, Carl Vinson, Theodore Roosevelt and the
> Kitty Hawk have been deployed. Four battle groups, including Marine Corps
> Amphibious Ready Groups, destroyers, cruisers, submarines and support
ships,
> are on station. We know that much of the air campaign to date has been
waged
> from American and British ships. And although this war cannot and will not
be
> fought only with cruise missiles and from 15,000 feet in the air, the Navy
and
>  Marine Corps are always an essential instrument of American power, and
your
> service will be essential to our victory, in Afghanistan and beyond if
> necessary. It is your duty and your honor to defend the greatest nation in
> history in its hour of need. I envy you.
>
>  I say that fully aware of the hardships and risks that we impose on those
we
> send to fight for us. I say that fully aware of the horrors that war
> inevitably visits on the innocent. I don't think war is glorious. I don't
> know a veteran who cherishes a romantic remembrance of war. All wars are
> awful. When nations must defend themselves by force of arms, a million
> tragedies ensue. Nothing, not the valor with which it is fought nor the
> nobility of the cause it serves, can glorify the cruel and merciless
reality
> of warfare. That's what makes war a thing to be avoided if possible. But
it
> is not possible now. There was no avoiding the war we are in today anymore
> than we could have avoided world war after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
>
>  In truth, this war was declared by our enemies long before the attacks of
>  September 11. And our reluctance to recognize this reality, and commit
>  ourselves to unconditional victory, has been a very costly mistake
Because
> the only things worse than war are the consequences of refusing to wage
and
> win it when our vital interests and founding ideals are at stake.
>
>  Our enemies have now made plain to us the clear and present danger they
pose
> to our physical security and to the very essence of our culture, liberty.
> Only the most willfully deluded Americans could doubt the necessity of
this
> war. We must fight. And we must prevail.
>
>  The term of art for the warfare of terrorists is asymmetrical. It is the
>  kind of warfare practiced by militarily inferior forces against superior
>  ones. We are most certainly militarily superior to our enemies. But so
was
> the Soviet Union when it invaded Afghanistan, if not nearly to the extent
> that we are, as al Queda and their Taliban allies are now learning. Yet
what
> ensures our success is that our military superiority is matched only by
the
> superiority of our ideals, and our unconquerable love for them. Our
enemies
> are weaker than us in arms and men, but they are weaker still in causes.
They
> fight to express their irrational hatred for all that is good in humanity,
a
> hatred that has fallen time and again to the armies and ideals of the
> righteous. We fight for love of freedom and justice, a love that is
> invincible. We will never surrender. They will.
>
>  The obligation of victory is shared by all Americans, but not equally.
The
>  public and the men and women they elect to serve them must share a
resolve
> to see this war through to a just end, whatever the costs incurred,
>  whatever setbacks we might encounter. As in all wars, we must endure
before
> we prevail. Our elected leaders, from the most obscure office holder to
the
> Commander-in-Chief, must not, as the President so eloquently promised,
tire,
> falter or fail. The President and his able cabinet must, and I am
confident
> will, wage this war wisely and decisively. But government is responsible
for
> the summons. It falls to the men and women of the United States Armed
Forces,
> it falls to you to give the answer. This is a righteous cause, and there
is
> much honor in your summons, but more honor still in your answer. I have no
> doubt that you are worthy of it. No doubt at all.
>
>  In America, our rights come before our duties, as well they should. We
are a
> free people, and among those freedoms is the liberty to sacrifice or not
>  for our birthright. We no longer have military conscription. Nor do we
need
> it because we can rely on the patriotism of more than sufficient numbers
of
> Americans to defend willingly the liberty of us all. Yet early in life,
you
> have grasped a great truth: that those who claim their liberty but not
their
> duty to the civilization that ensures it live a half-life, having indulged
> their vanity and self-interest at the cost of their self-respect. The
richest
> man or woman, the most successful and celebrated of our citizens possesses
> nothing important if their lives have no greater object than themselves.
They
> may be masters of their fate, but what a poor destiny it is that claims no
> higher cause than wealth and fame.
>
>  I do not believe that war and military service are the only means to
honor
>  in America. God grants us all the privilege of having our character and
>  our patriotism tested. But those who wear the uniform of the United
States
> know better than anyone the meaning of American citizenship.
>
>  Should we claim our rights and leave to others our duty to the nation
that
>  protects them?  Whatever we gain for ourselves will be of little lasting
>  value.  It will build no monuments to virtue, claim no place in the
memory
>  of posterity, offer no worthy summons to aspiring nations.  Success,
wealth,
> celebrity gained and kept for private interest is a small thing. It makes
us
> comfortable, eases the material hardships our children will bear,
purchases a
> fleeting regard for our lives, yet not the self-respect that in the end
will
> matter to you most. But sacrifice for a cause greater than self-interest
and
> you invest your lives with the eminence of that cause, your self-respect
> assured.
>
>  My father's generation fought depression and world war. Members of my
>  generation fought in the Cold War and in the struggle for a more perfect
>  union, a more just society. Some fought in uniform and some did not, but
>  all rendered good service to America and humanity. Service in worthy
causes
> give our lives meaning. They give even the most obscure names historical
> importance. Even when the names of the men and women who serve in them are
> forgotten, the world will still remember what they did.
>
>  When I was a young man, I thought glory was the highest ambition, and
that
> all glory was self-glory. My parents tried to teach me otherwise, as did
the
> Naval Academy. But I didn't understand the lesson until later in life,
when I
> confronted challenges I never expected to face.
>
>  In that confrontation, I discovered I was dependent on others to a
greater
>  extent than I had ever realized, but that neither they nor the cause we
>  served made any claims on my identity. On the contrary, they gave me a
>  larger sense of myself than I had before. I discovered that nothing is
>  more liberating than to fight for a cause larger than yourself; something
> that encompasses you, but is not defined by your existence alone.
>
>  I have held a public trust since I graduated from the Academy forty-three
>  years ago. I have never lived a single day, in good times and bad, that I
>  wasn't grateful for the privilege. This country and her causes are a
>  blessing to mankind, and they honor all who work to make America a better
> place, and a greater influence on human history.
>
>  For all the terrible problems that still afflict humanity, the 21st
Century
>  would have dawned on a much less hopeful world absent America's place in
it.
>  This is what our enemies fail to understand. But they'll know it soon
>  enough. As they race to their bunkers and caves while the might of the
>  world's only superpower concentrates on their destruction, they will
learn
> just how powerful a force for good we are.
>
>  Until the end of time, will there ever be a nation such as ours? I cannot
>  imagine that any other nation's history will ever so profoundly affect
the
>  progress of the human race. That is not boastful chauvinism. It is a
>  profession of faith in the American creed, and in the patriots who
>  understood what history expects of us, and who saw to it that America
>  exceeded even the loftiest aspirations of our founders.
>
>  We are not a perfect nation. Prosperity and power might delude us into
>  thinking we have achieved that distinction, but challenges unforeseen a
>  mere generation ago command every good citizen's concern and labor. But
what
> we have achieved in our brief history is irrefutable proof that a nation
> conceived in liberty will prove stronger than any nation ordered to exalt
the
> few at the expense of the many or made from a common race or culture or to
> preserve traditions that have no greater attribute than longevity.
>
>  As blessed as we are, as empowered by liberty as we are, no nation
>  complacent in its greatness can long sustain it. We are an unfinished
>  nation. And we are not a people of half-measures. We must all take our
>  place, give our counsel, direct our passion to the enduring task of
>  national greatness.
>
>  I believe we were all shaken from whatever complacency we may have felt
> before September 11. And that is one good thing to have arisen from the
ashes
> of the World Trade Center. But it is only good so long as the
>  absence of complacency does not provoke an absence of confidence. What
our
> enemies have sought to destroy is beyond their reach. We must all have
faith
> in that truth. Armed with the power of our faith, we can endure whatever
> trials we must face.
>
>  Our enemies think we are weak, spared by prosperity from the hard uses of
> life, bred only for comfort and easy pleasure, and not the violent, cruel
>  struggle they plan for us. The hatred that cramps their hearts has
drained
>  from their judgment all wisdom and understanding about the power of the
>  civilization they battle.
>
>  Twelve years ago, in the first days of the last days of the Soviet
empire,
>  a young Czech student stood before a million of his countrymen, while two
> hundred thousand Soviet troops occupied his country, and, trembling with
> emotion, read a manifesto that declared a new day for the peoples of
>  Eastern Europe. But he began that new day with borrowed words when he
> proclaimed:
>
>  "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal
>  and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among
> these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
>
>  The message of the American revolution is the central truth of human
>  existence. Liberty is our God-given right. No one shall take it from us.
>  We fight today, we will fight tomorrow, we will fight to the end of time
to
> preserve it.
>
>  Our enemies have used our liberty to their cruel ends. But our freedom is
>  not our weakness. It is our strength. We will not let it be circumscribed
>  by fear. Our enemies have never had the strength to take our freedom from
> us. They have taken innocent life. That is the limit of their power. And
>  awakened to their threat, we will destroy that power too.
>
>  The terror our enemies have tried to sow in the hearts of Americans will
>  now be the essence of their lives, however abbreviated their lives will
be.
> And when they meet their Maker they will learn that they had their
theology
> all
>  wrong. Right, not hate, makes might. As they experience our power, so
will
> they know the full measure of our righteousness. And as their last hour
> approaches they can ask an all-loving God for mercy. But don't ask us. We
> bring justice, not mercy.
>
>  Soon you will be the shield behind which marches the enduring message of
>  our revolution. There is no greater duty, no greater honor. Your country
> needs you. Humanity needs you. Hold that honor as dearly as your country
> holds you. Hold it as dearly as do those who have already been called to
the
>  battle. Hold it as if it were your greatest treasure. Because it is. It
is.
>  Whatever sacrifices you must bear, you will know a happiness far more
>  sublime than pleasure.
>
>  My warrior days were long ago, but not so long ago that I have forgotten
>  their purpose and their reward. This is your call to arms.  This is your
>  moment to make history. There will never be another nation such as ours.
>  Take good care of her.  The fate of the world depends upon it. May God
>  bless you, as He has blessed America with your service.
>
>  Thank you.

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