Political Quotes

“we are met today to pay tribute to the millions of Americans who, in the face of tyranny and aggression, answered ``yes'' when their country called. To serve one's nation is always an ennobling experience. That is especially true when that service and the sacrifice it entails is performed in the context of a great struggle for freedom. And that, my friends, is precisely what World War II was: A great struggle for freedom, on whose outcome hung the fate of liberty and justice and decency in the world. The years, now over 50, have had their way with us. We are fewer and grayer and slower, but the words of Lord Tennyson were never more appropriate: Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now of that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. When you visit the Vietnam Memorial, those 58,196 names overwhelming; but a World War II memorial would contain 291,557 names of U.S. military killed in action. And add to that our war dead in Korea and the First World War and this century, mercifully coming to a close becomes, the bloodiest century in all history. We own an unpayable debt to those heroes of freedom whose gift of self, embodied in the performance of their duty, now rest in cemeteries in Normandy and throughout the islands of the Pacific.”