Don Nickles: “Mr. President, when Americans came home from World War Two the time reserved for celebrating their hard won victory was…”

“Mr. President, when Americans came home from World War Two the time reserved for celebrating their hard won victory was of necessity brief. Joyous though those celebrations were, they had to give way quickly to the hard work of repairing the damage done to families and communities by the long separations and tragic losses which war visits on the victors as well as the vanquished. But Americans, having defeated the Axis Powers, were upon the moment of that success obliged to assume the new responsibility of leading the free world's resistance to the imperial ambitions of our former ally, the Soviet Union. By so doing, they undertook a mission of immense proportions and difficulty, but great historic significance and nobility. For it was the Americans who fought so valiantly from Guadalcanal to Normandy who would then devote their lives to ensuring that the second half of this century not collapse into the bloody calamities or succumb to the aggression of freedom's adversaries that made this century one of the most violent and tragic times in recorded human history. At both the mid point and the end of the 20th century, these Americans ranked among the greatest generations of our countrymen.”