Gerald Ford

Your spotlight is not mine; mine is not yours.

It has your weight wrong, too.

She is first of all a symbol of the United States, of our immense resources in materials and skilled manpower.

Wherever the United States Ship Nimitz shows her flag, she will be seen as a solid symbol of United States strength, United States resolve.

We cannot function well without each other.

Let us all rededicate ourselves to this principle and to unstinting service to our country and to its people.

Looking back on a period of my own life, one of the things of which I am the proudest is that I can say, 'I served under Admiral Nimitz in the Pacific.'

Decisions and conclusions may be questioned, but motivation and commitment are not.

The Nimitz is now a United States Ship.

He surrounded himself with the ablest men he could find and sought their advice, but he made his own decisions.

We are strong, we will continue to be strong, we will keep our commitments, and we will remain a great country.

This is the First Family I know we all want to be a part of.

Only the United States of America can make a machine like this.

Let me simply conclude by offering again my personal congratulations to all of these highly trained, completely dedicated men who have added another page of history in the area of aviation for the benefit of all mankind.

It is now my honor to present the 1974 Harmon International Aviation trophies to a half dozen new heroes.

Now, the 1974 Aviator's Trophy is awarded to a pilot who flew a C-5 airlift mission some 13,000 miles, round-trip, from the United States to Israel.

Without our brave American pilots, we would have witnessed, unfortunately, greater tragedy in the recent evacuation in Vietnam and in Cambodia.

I think a dialog is helpful.

May I congratulate each one of you.

He is a true hero of America's progress in aviation.

I'm as concerned as you are that we strengthen our education system through a balanced program of local, State, and Federal funding.

There is a great deal of work to be done in the field of education.

I personally would like to see classroom teachers have a larger voice in Federal policy-making.

I have found that there is a tendency, not just in education but in other areas, to have a repetition of individuals who serve on one commission or another be reappointed or appointed to other groups.

The humanitarian role of today's aviators, including the piloting of helicopters and big airlift missions, are often vital to life.