Gates Calls On Graduates To Live Lives Of Service
(May 19, 2010) |
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| | WASHINGTON, May 16, 2010 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates
spoke of the satisfaction of a life of service during
graduation exercises at Morehouse College in Atlanta this
morning. “You have learned and lived values this school
prides itself on: caring beyond self, devotion to one's
community and fellow citizens, and preparedness to serve –
all fundamental to our democracy and this great experiment
we call the United States of America,” Gates said at the
all-male, historically black college.
The secretary, who has served the nation since 1966,
spoke of the obligation of service in America.“ |
Defense Secretary Robert M.
Gates delivers the oath of office to newly
commissioned sailors and airmen at Morehouse
College's 126th Commencement ceremony in
Atlanta, Ga., May 16, 2010.
DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Jerry
Morrison |
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We hear a lot in the United
States about our rights as citizens, but what we
don't hear enough about ... are our
responsibilities as citizens,” he said.
The secretary quoted former Morehouse President
Benjamin Mays who said, “It is not what you
keep, but what you give that makes you happy. We
make our living by what we get. We make our life
by what we give.”
Americans hear of the problems with public
service, but they don't often hear of the
rewards, and the idealism, joy, satisfaction and
fulfillment that those who serve experience,
Gates told the graduates. |
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“My own views have been formed by what I have seen and
experienced since entering government 44 years ago this
summer, and especially in the last few years at the Defense
Department,” he said. “Every day, I have the great honor of
interacting with men and women who have volunteered to serve
our nation during a time of war – setting aside their dreams
to protect yours; putting the security of their countrymen
above their own lives.”
Millions of Americans have chosen careers in civic service
as police, firefighters, teachers, nurses or elected or
appointed officials. “If, in an unguarded moment, you asked
the public servants I have known what their motivation was,
you'd learn that – no matter how outwardly tough or jaded –
they mostly were, and are, in their heart of hearts,
romantics and idealists,” he said. “And optimists.”
Public servants believe they can make a difference, and
change the lives of others for the better. “That we can make
a positive difference in the life of our country,” he said.
Gates told the graduates of his own experience. The
secretary grew up in Kansas in the 1940s and 1950s. In
Topeka , Kansas in 1951, Linda Brown tried to enroll in an
all-white neighborhood school. She was denied. Her father,
the Reverend Oliver Brown, sued the local board of education
in a case that came to be known as Brown vs. the Topeka
Board of Education. The landmark case went to the Supreme
Court, which knocked down the idea that education of blacks
and whites in America could be separate but equal.
A few years later, it was another son of Kansas , President
Dwight D. Eisenhower, who sent federal troops to Little Rock
, Ark. , to enforce that Supreme Court decision – and tear
down once and for all the pernicious belief that a
two-tiered society could ever be separate but equal.
Gates also spoke of Eisenhower's decision to send troops to
Little Rock to uphold the Supreme Court's integration
decision.
“I think about that multiple times a week, when I cross the
Potomac River to visit the White House, a building
originally constructed in part with slave labor – and serve
at the pleasure of our nation's forty-fourth president, the
first African-American commander in chief,” Gates said. “I
can tell you it is an incredible and humbling experience –
made possible only because millions of ordinary citizens
fought for generations to uphold a truth we hold to be self
evident: that all men truly are created equal.”
The United States is an imperfect nation, the secretary
said, “and will always be a work in progress. And so it
falls to your generation to ensure that we continue along
the path of progress. As President Obama has said, you must
put your foot firmly into the current of history.”
Morehouse was founded in 1867, just two years after the end
of the Civil War. It began in the basement of a Baptist
church and has since grown to become an international icon,
and is often called one of the “Black Ivy's.” Many, many
“Morehouse Men” have served America nobly, including current
Defense Department General Council Jeh Johnson, Gates said.
He urged the graduates to continue the tradition.
Gates quoted a letter from President John Adams to his son:
“‘Public business, my son, must always be done by somebody
or other. If wise men decline it, others will not; if honest
men refuse it, others will not.' And, I would add, if
Morehouse men turn away, others will not.
“And so I ask you, Morehouse College Class of 2010, will the
wise and honest among you come help us serve the American
people?”
Some already have made the commitment. Following the
graduation, the defense secretary presided at the
commissioning of seven graduates into the U.S. Navy and Air
Force
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By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
Copyright 2010
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