Barack Obama Forty-Fourth President
(2009 to 2017)
Remarks On Memorial Day 2011
Arlington National Cemetery - Arlington, Virginia May 30, 2011
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you so much. Please be seated.
Thank you, Secretary Gates, and thank you for your extraordinary
service to our nation. I think that Bob Gates will go down as one of
our finest Secretaries of Defense in our history, and it's been an
honor to serve with him. (Applause.)
I also want to say a
word about Admiral Mullen. On a day when we are announcing his
successor as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and as he looks
forward to a well-deserved retirement later this year, Admiral
Mullen, on behalf of all Americans, we want to say thank you for
your four decades of service to this great country. (Applause.) We
want to thank Deborah Mullen as well for her extraordinary service.
To Major General Karl Horst, the commanding general of our Military
District of Washington; Mrs. Nancy Horst; Mr. Patrick Hallinan, the
superintendent of Arlington National Cemetery, as well as his lovely
wife Doreen. And to Chaplain Steve Berry, thank you for your
extraordinary service. (Applause.)
It is a great privilege
to return here to our national sanctuary, this most hallowed ground,
to commemorate Memorial Day with all of you. With Americans who've
come to pay their respects. With members of our military and their
families. With veterans whose service we will never forget and
always honor. And with Gold Star families whose loved ones rest all
around us in eternal peace.
To those of you who mourn the
loss of a loved one today, my heart breaks goes out to you. I love
my daughters more than anything in the world, and I cannot imagine
losing them. I can't imagine losing a sister or brother or parent at
war. The grief so many of you carry in your hearts is a grief I
cannot fully know.
This day is about you, and the fallen
heroes that you loved. And it's a day that has meaning for all
Americans, including me. It's one of my highest honors, it is my
most solemn responsibility as President, to serve as
Commander-in-Chief of one of the finest fighting forces the world
has ever known. (Applause.) And it's a responsibility that carries a
special weight on this day; that carries a special weight each time
I meet with our Gold Star families and I see the pride in their
eyes, but also the tears of pain that will never fully go away; each
time I sit down at my desk and sign a condolence letter to the
family of the fallen.
Sometimes a family will write me back
and tell me about their daughter or son that they've lost, or a
friend will write me a letter about what their battle buddy meant to
them. I received one such letter from an Army veteran named Paul
Tarbox after I visited Arlington a couple of years ago. Paul saw a
photograph of me walking through Section 60, where the heroes who
fell in Iraq and Afghanistan lay, by a headstone marking the final
resting place of Staff Sergeant Joe Phaneuf.
Joe, he told me,
was a friend of his, one of the best men he'd ever known, the kind
of guy who could have the entire barracks in laughter, who was
always there to lend a hand, from being a volunteer coach to helping
build a playground. It was a moving letter, and Paul closed it with
a few words about the hallowed cemetery where we are gathered here
today.
He wrote, “The venerable warriors that slumber there
knew full well the risks that are associated with military service,
and felt pride in defending our democracy. The true lesson of
Arlington,” he continued, “is that each headstone is that of a
patriot. Each headstone shares a story. Thank you for letting me
share with you [the story] about my friend Joe.”
Staff
Sergeant Joe Phaneuf was a patriot, like all the venerable warriors
who lay here, and across this country, and around the globe. Each of
them adds honor to what it means to be a soldier, sailor, airman,
Marine, and Coast Guardsman. Each is a link in an unbroken chain
that stretches back to the earliest days of our Republic -- and on
this day, we memorialize them all.
We memorialize our first
patriots -- blacksmiths and farmers, slaves and freedmen -- who
never knew the independence they won with their lives. We
memorialize the armies of men, and women disguised as men, black and
white, who fell in apple orchards and cornfields in a war that saved
our union. We memorialize those who gave their lives on the
battlefields of our times -- from Normandy to Manila, Inchon to Khe
Sanh, Baghdad to Helmand, and in jungles, deserts, and city streets
around the world.
What bonds this chain together across the
generations, this chain of honor and sacrifice, is not only a common
cause -- our country's cause -- but also a spirit captured in a Book
of Isaiah, a familiar verse, mailed to me by the Gold Star parents
of 2nd Lieutenant Mike McGahan. “When I heard the voice of the Lord
saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?' And I said,
‘Here I am. Send me!”
That's what we memorialize today. That
spirit that says, send me, no matter the mission. Send me, no matter
the risk. Send me, no matter how great the sacrifice I am called to
make. The patriots we memorialize today sacrificed not only all they
had but all they would ever know. They gave of themselves until they
had nothing more to give. It's natural, when we lose someone we care
about, to ask why it had to be them. Why my son, why my sister, why
my friend, why not me?
These are questions that cannot be
answered by us. But on this day we remember that it is on our behalf
that they gave our lives -- they gave their lives. We remember that
it is their courage, their unselfishness, their devotion to duty
that has sustained this country through all its trials and will
sustain us through all the trials to come. We remember that the
blessings we enjoy as Americans came at a dear cost; that our very
presence here today, as free people in a free society, bears
testimony to their enduring legacy.
Our nation owes a debt to
its fallen heroes that we can never fully repay. But we can honor
their sacrifice, and we must. We must honor it in our own lives by
holding their memories close to our hearts, and heeding the example
they set. And we must honor it as a nation by keeping our sacred
trust with all who wear America's uniform, and the families who love
them; by never giving up the search for those who've gone missing
under our country's flag or are held as prisoners of war; by serving
our patriots as well as they serve us -- from the moment they enter
the military, to the moment they leave it, to the moment they are
laid to rest.
That is how we can honor the sacrifice of those
we've lost. That is our obligation to America's guardians --
guardians like Travis Manion. The son of a Marine, Travis aspired to
follow in his father's footsteps and was accepted by the USS [sic]
Naval Academy. His roommate at the Academy was Brendan Looney, a
star athlete and born leader from a military family, just like
Travis. The two quickly became best friends -- like brothers,
Brendan said.
After graduation, they deployed -- Travis to
Iraq, and Brendan to Korea. On April 29, 2007, while fighting to
rescue his fellow Marines from danger, Travis was killed by a
sniper. Brendan did what he had to do -- he kept going. He poured
himself into his SEAL training, and dedicated it to the friend that
he missed. He married the woman he loved. And, his tour in Korea
behind him, he deployed to Afghanistan. On September 21st of last
year, Brendan gave his own life, along with eight others, in a
helicopter crash.
Heartbroken, yet filled with pride, the
Manions and the Looneys knew only one way to honor their sons'
friendship -- they moved Travis from his cemetery in Pennsylvania
and buried them side by side here at Arlington. “Warriors for
freedom,” reads the epitaph written by Travis's father, “brothers
forever.”
The friendship between 1st Lieutenant Travis Manion
and Lieutenant Brendan Looney reflects the meaning of Memorial Day.
Brotherhood. Sacrifice. Love of country. And it is my fervent prayer
that we may honor the memory of the fallen by living out those
ideals every day of our lives, in the military and beyond. May God
bless the souls of the venerable warriors we've lost, and the
country for which they died. (Applause.)
