“America has always called its citizens to service. And without fail, America’s young people in uniform have responded. It was that way at Concord and Gettysburg and Iwo Jima and Khe Sanh, and it’s that way now in Ramadi, Fallujah, and Kandahar.

“Today we come here to remember forever all who served, and particularly those who gave their lives. We celebrate what they were and remain part of -- a great nation committed to peace, individual liberty, freedom for all -- a nation which outlined in the writing of a constitution fundamental rights which belong to every one of its citizens and which we remember today, are worth dying for.

“Today -- because of their courage and sacrifice -- we celebrate rights and aspirations that are bigger than any individual and which each of us as individuals are willing to defend with life itself. We celebrate the nobility of young Americans willing to go thousands of miles from home to fight for the belief that in the final measurement someone else’s freedom was connected to our own -- and celebrate that special spirit -- the special bond of soldier to country and soldier to soldier.

“We must also remember those soldiers captured by the enemy who did not return and those we’ve yet to account for. One of the things many of us Vietnam veterans here today are most proud of is that we initiated the most extensive, exhaustive accounting for the missing or captured in all the history of human warfare. No nation has ever gone to such lengths to remember and to account their missing. Today -- because of the veterans of Vietnam -- when we send our young men and women into harms way, never again will we allow anyone to be left behind never will it take so long to find and bring every one home.

“The truth is that every advance we’ve made on behalf of our Veterans -- Agent Orange, outreach centers, extension of the GI Bill -- has been the result of the commitment of Veterans and to each other and their vows never to give up the fight.”

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