Bill Clinton: “Well, first I would say that they're really the first generation of American troops to serve a United States that is…”

“Well, first I would say that they're really the first generation of American troops to serve a United States that is both the dominant military power in the world and without a dominant military opponent, like the Soviet Union; that for 10 years now, we've been trying to work out how we can fairly fulfill our responsibilities to promote peace and freedom and prosperity, consistent with our ability to afford it and the need for our allies to assume their fair share of responsibility. And our military people have been on the cutting edge of this sea change. In the whole history of America, there has never been a period like this, ever. We've either gone into isolationism as soon as a war was over, or we got thrown into the cold war for the last 50 years, before the end of the cold war. And I would hope that they would be very proud of that, the idea that other nations would trust the United States, for example, to come into Bosnia, to deal with this crisis in Kosovo, to stand guard on the border with the U.N. troops in Macedonia, to stay in Korea decades after the end of the Korean war, because they know we have no territorial ambitions, because they know we don't seek to impose our will on other countries. They really know we're there for peace and security. And it's sometimes dangerous, sometimes boring, sometimes disruptive because of the rapid number of deployments that we have. But all of them should understand that they're part of a profound historic transformation in the world. And if we do this right, when we get through, the United States will share responsibilities for security with other democracies in a balanced and fair way and will be doing it in a way that is quite effective. I mean, one of the things that our people ought to be proud of is how effective they are in Bosnia, for example; how effective they are in the aftermath of the hurricane in Central America. Mrs. Cohen. Give me some examples, human stories, in Bosnia and then Central America.”