To General Thurman's family and friends and to the Army community, I extend my heartfelt condolences.

I think that the support is building in the United States.

You are about to do something very important for your Nation, very important for the world, very important for the future that you want your own children to have.

You truly are America's Iron Soldiers.

It's been a huge advantage.

Waging peace is risky.

Your road is our road.

One thing I am convinced of as I leave here: that there is a global hunger among young people for their parents to put down the madness of war in favor of their childhood.

I could not say it better than your Nobel Prize winning poet, Seamus Heaney, has said: We are living in a moment when hope and history rhyme.

America will be with you as you walk the road of peace.

We've tried to support those who are taking risks for peace.

I'm very proud of them for doing it.

I applaud the Taoiseach for his courage, but I know that the courage and the heart of the Irish people made it possible.

Today I renew America's pledge.

We shouldn't be talking about, 'If at the end of the day . . .'

God bless you, and thank you.

I would like everyone in the world to pay tribute to Ireland for coming out of the famine with perhaps a greater sense of compassion for the fate of people the world over than any other nation.

It is easier to stay with the old grudges and the old habits.