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Congressional Medal of Honor Monument Dedication Memorial Day Speech by Governor George W. Bush
We meet at this historic place, on this solemn day, to dedicate a monument to uncommon courage - and to rededicate ourselves to the duty of memory.
A governor is accustomed to giving out honors. But today it is I who am honored to shake the hands of freedoms heroes. Behind each name on this stone, living and dead, is a heros story. They are stories of daring attacks, impossible rescues and last ditch stands. They are stories of hopeless odds and stubborn spirit and terrible injuries. From across the world and across the years, the courage in these stories still flashes; the honor still glows.
Each action was beyond the call of duty, leaving a debt beyond our ability to repay.
True courage, its said, is the most generous of the virtues. It elevates ideals over self and duty over comfort. It leads young men and women to risk everything they have, everything they value, for a future they may not see. And it points to the greatest truth we can know: That love without cost, without sacrifice, is meaningless. It is the message of this monument.
And it is also the lesson of Memorial Day, when we pause, in busy lives, to remember the price of liberty, measured in young lives that ended so suddenly, so tragically, so very far from home. That grief has touched every city, every town, nearly every family in this country.
It is written on countless other monuments, some green with age, some covered today with flowers and tears, like that long, black wall in Washington. Those of us who benefit from this sacrifice face a question: What do we owe the brave?
It is our first duty to remember what they have done. And that should not be hard, because it is one of the greatest stories of human history. Americans won world wars and a cold war. Kids fresh from farms and tenements humbled historys worst tyrants. They opened death camps and emptied Gulags. Their character was tested in death marches and jungle stalemates. And, in the end, they won an epic struggle - the struggle of a century -- to save liberty itself.
We carve our thanks into stone. We stamp it into medals. We carefully tend to vast fields of white crosses and Stars of David. But it is even more important to pass stories of American courage and character to the next generation. To capture their imaginations. To raise a monument in their hearts. It is the way our democracy renews its promise, by celebrating American heroes and American values, without hesitation and without apology. Let us resolve to teach Americas story to Americas children.
First we remember. But second, we must renew a commitment, in our generation, with our challenges, to the pride and power and purpose of America. We must act worthy of our history - worthy of these men and their sacrifice - by writing new chapters of American greatness in a new century that is our charge.
New threats are replacing old enemies. Unstable dictators seek weapons of mass destruction. Regional power grabs become global crises. We navigate through mines in the mist. But it is still America that preserves the peace. Our nation still determines the future of freedom. America is still a bright signal in a dark night.
Those who man the lighthouse of freedom ask little of our nation in return. But what they ask our nation must provide: a coherent vision of Americas duties, a clear military mission in time of crisis, and, when sent in harms way, the best support and equipment our nation can supply. With these things, they never fail us. Without these things, we have failed them.
Let us resolve never to multiply our missions while cutting our capabilities. Let us resolve to restore a belief in American interests, American character and American destiny. And let us resolve to keep faith with our past by being vigilant in our time.
These are the ways to help repay our debt of honor.
There is an inscription on the Scottish National War Memorial which reads, "The whole earth is the tomb of heroes, and their story is not graven in stone over their clay, but abides everywhere, without visible symbol, woven into the stuff of other mens lives."
We dedicate this monument to the bravest of the brave. We pledge to preserve their memory in our time, for all time. Yet the greatest monument to the courage of Americans is the world they saved and shaped. And their story is not written in stone, it is woven into the lives of everyone who loves freedom.
And so we remember - as Americans will remember through our history - the heroes who saved a century
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