Steve Buyer: “I would like to thank both parties for recognizing the uncommon virtue and valor. It didn't occur just at Iwo Jima. It…”

“I would like to thank both parties for recognizing the uncommon virtue and valor. It didn't occur just at Iwo Jima. It occurred in many battlefields and lonely places all over the world. These are military values and virtues which are passed from one generation to the next. They are memorialized, and we've done that here in the Nation's Capital in Arlington by that extraordinary photo that was then transformed into that statue. The art of man is able to construct monuments and awards that are far more significant than the narrow span of our own existence. It's the silent lapse of time that displays how frail and how fallible we are as a people. So it truly is what we do with the time that we have that matters most. So those of us with whom we've had the privilege to wear the uniform and fight our Nation's wars and to serve on foreign soil, I can tell you having done that, that it is an extraordinary feeling. Now for the men and women, the nurses and the men who were in the dark sands of Iwo Jima, what an extraordinary campaign, and we have done everything we can to fulfill their ideal. At times, we fall short. We fall short as a people when we don't fulfill the ideal of their sacrifice; that is, the preservation of freedom and the preservation of individual liberty.”