Bill Clinton: “Well, I would say that obviously what they're doing may not be as dramatic as landing on Omaha Beach, and I certainly…”

“Well, I would say that obviously what they're doing may not be as dramatic as landing on Omaha Beach, and I certainly hope it won't be as dangerous, ever. But what we know about World War II, looking back, is that even though after World War II there was this long twilight struggle of the cold war, it may be that World War II was the last war of mass slaughter of nation-states, certainly in Europe, because we stood up against the totalitarian dictatorships of Nazi Germany and their allies. So it was of historic significance because, in the aftermath of World War I, we hope at least that it nailed the coffin, at least in the West and other more well-developed countries, on mass warfare by nations. And huge--millions and millions and millions of people died. Then the cold war, we hope, brought an end to the world being divided between communism and freedom. But what these people are doing, and what 50 years from now their children and their grandchildren will be able to look back and see, is that they are erecting a defense for the 21st century. They are dealing with a hundred little problems, each of which could become a big problem and could swallow the world up. They are making the world safe for genuine self-determination, for freedom, for free commerce, for free exchange of ideas, in a way that no generation has ever tried to do or had to do before, because the world is so interconnected and one of these little problems can become a forest fire and spread around. So they really--I think 50 years from now, when they look back, they will see that they didn't bring an end to an era of slaughter the way the World War II generation did, with heroism and great sacrifice, but they did put America's military might to work in building a new world, which is something that I think their children and grandchildren will be very, very proud of. And there is no doubt that the United States could not have done it by economic power alone. Without our military alliances, without the expansion of NATO, without the deployment in Bosnia, without our ability to continue to try to stop bad things from happening and weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, without our willingness to stay on the Korean Peninsula to try to stabilize situations there and work through the other tensions in Asia, we would not have been able to do this. And if people in my position, the decisionmakers, if we don't mess it up, then the military will know that they were part of literally building the world different from any in all previous history. And that's--I think that's a legacy to be proud of. Mrs. Cohen. It's one you should be proud of, too. Thank you very much for this interview. Thank you, sir. Opportunities for Women and Minorities Mrs. Cohen. The recent mission that we had was Desert Fox. And we were fortunate at Christmas to be on the ``Big E,'' on the U.S.S. Enterprise, and we met a lot of the Navy pilots, and some of them were women. Could you talk about that?”