Political Quotes

“The topic of today's Special Order is to recognize the importance of Armed Forces Day and Memorial Day. I am not going to give a history lesson here tonight, but, rather, a series of personal remembrances that started when I was about 5 or 6 years old in the early 1950s. My father, a World War II veteran, and some of his fellow veterans organized the local VFW in Minnesota where I was born. We would spend Memorial Day in the morning visiting three cemeteries in our local town. At each cemetery, the color guard would post the colors, the rifles would give their report, and taps would play. Everyone who attended-- and when I say everyone who attended, that was really the whole town-- came out in a long train of automobiles to go to these three cemeteries to honor the veterans who were no longer of this Earth. I remember the solemnness of that day. I remember the tears for family members and friends who had passed on, those who had worn the cloth of our Nation both in peace and in war. Those kinds of memories, as I stand here and talk tonight, are very vivid in my mind. Some years later, in the mid-1960s, we were involved in Vietnam, and I was a sophomore in college. Because of the fact that my parents had both stepped up during World War II, I felt--and with their support--it was the right thing to stand up and take the oath that sent me into the Marine Corps to serve our country.…”