The Department of the Interior has a multitude of missions, but among them is serving as custodians for historic sites that preserve our nation's heritage.

More than 60 percent of our National Park units preserve some aspect of American history. From historic battlefields to petroglyphs, from President John Adams' home to the Lincoln Monument we endeavor to hold fast to our heritage.

It is an honor and a privilege to be involved with America's special places and to give Americans the chance to hold them dear.

These historic places contemplate current triumphs and tragedies in the context of their meaning for the trends of history and for our nation.

Today we are here to highlight and modify the role of a special place in our history-one that has been part of the National Park Service since 1904-the Civil War Correspondent Memorial Arch.

The job of war correspondent is a recent one in history.

Julius Caesar wrote his own war coverage. A number of generals and commanders through the ages did the same.

Over the centuries, many a young officer away in battle wrote letters home that were posted in public places and often ended up in the pages of newspapers. Sometimes soldiers were recruited to send letters to publications.

During the Crimean War in the mid -1800s, according to Harold Evans at the Newseum, The Times of London got fed up with waiting for such missives to find their way back to the newspaper.

Thus the war correspondent was born. An Irishman named William Howard Russell began sending dispatches from the Russian front that arrived one week after the event-considered prompt by the standards of the day.

It was the Civil War and Matthew Brady who revolutionized war reporting. His photographic exhibit, "The Dead of Antietam," marked the first time most people had witnessed the horrors of war. "The New York Times" wrote that Brady had brought "home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war."

You will find Matthew Brady's name engraved on the war memorial before us. The scribes, artists and photographers from both North and South are honored here. As the inscription says, they "…gave incentive to narrate distant wars and explore dark lands."

Civil War correspondent George Alfred Townsend built the memorial on his own estate and included 107 names of those who served during the Civil War.

Cadres of men and women have been narrating distant wars and exploring dark lands ever since. Many have lost their lives in the effort. Few have been recognized or honored.

The Freedom Forum monitors the journalists across the world who are killed in action. That number stands at 39 so far this year.

When our nation "Cries havoc, and lets slip the dogs of war," our military prepares and deploys.

Ahead of them, with them and behind them are the reporters and photographers charged with bringing the facts to the people who are left at home.

Journalists have worn the uniforms, slogged in the same boots and shared the bad food at the front. They have dodged the same bullets and been burned by the same gasses as soldiers. Few receive recognition beyond a pat on the back from their editors and producers. Almost none are decorated with medals.

But they bring us a valuable service. They transport legions of us-at home, in front of the television or reading our morning papers-onto the battlefield. The pictures they paint are sometimes tragic; sometimes heroic and exciting.

Let me give you an example.
CBS Evening News Correspondent Jim Axelrod described his recent experience in Iraq in a new book entitled, "Embedded":

"There were three of us in the Humvee. Our driver was Geof, Mario's in the passenger seat taking pictures and I'm in the back. We get halfway over this bridge and the car dies. Battery quits. Nothing. Dead. The Humvee is now stalled exactly halfway across this bridge, while all of this fighting is going on. Artillery is flying over our heads. Mortars are flying over our heads. There are AK47 bullets flying over our heads and we're just sitting there. I'm thinking, "I don't know what my wife is going to tell my kids was so damn important that Daddy had to leave." Because, you know, that's it. We were under fire. We couldn't get out of the car. What were we going to do? Our good friends at ABC saw what was happening and they drove right up behind us and pushed us across the bridge. So we're fond of saying that we were the first western television crew to cross the Euphrates with our competition right on our tail. But that's only because they were pushing us. We were never so happy to have ABC there behind us!"

Yes, there is battlefront humor, as well as sorrow and tragedy. It is up to the journalists to make sure we know all the stories.

This memorial honors those from a long-ago war. But it is time we honor all those who have given their lives so that others might learn, understand, and remember.

Idaho Sen. William Borah, said it best on the floor of the U.S. Senate back in 1917:

"If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammeled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live, you are a subject and not a citizen."

Because of a free press, because of journalists like those we honor today, we remain citizens. We honor Daniel Pearl of The Wall Street Journal, David Bloom of NBC News, Michael Kelly, The Atlantic Monthly and The Washington Post, and Elizabeth Neuffer of The Boston Globe.

Thank you.

Our next speaker understands what it means to memorialize our history. His book, "The Greatest Generation," honors those who fought in World War II and came home to build America.

He has been a broadcast journalist from his start in Omaha in 1962 to anchoring the NBC Nightly News since 1983. His reporting has taken him from the streets of Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm to the shores of Somalia when American troops landed.

It is my pleasure to introduce one of those veteran journalists who has "narrated distant wars and explored dark lands." NBC Evening News Anchor, Tom Brokaw.