Oh the joys of summer, especially when my favorite tv shows are on hiatus. That means that my dvr gets a break from my beloved reality drama, dating-fashion-dance competitions, concerts, and talk show personalities to something with more substance.
I feel like a student again as I've started recording things like
Food Tech (process of how food is made and packaged),
Biography (more accurate versions of E! True Hollywood Stories),
30on30 (ESPN's short films of various sports history),
First Ladies of the United States (pretty much the only thing I really watch on CSPAN), and various documentaries on the History channel. With the beauty of multi-tasking, I tend to look up sources online and give shout outs on Social Media while I watch too.
Of course, my husband appreciates watching tv without constant beeping for bad language too. So be prepared - I'm getting smarter than I look! I think all of this new knowledge would make me an valuable asset to any pub trivia team.
One such show featured this speech by
President Jimmy Carter as he made preparations for a Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. possible. It's fitting now as it was then, especially as we prepare to celebrate our nation's Independence next week. Let this challenge you to re-think how you use the word HONOR in the future...
JULY 1, 1980 - Since I've been living in the White House and
working in the Oval Office, I've known of very few unanimous resolutions or
actions by the United States Senate. But it's especially fitting that this
resolution and the effort to provide a suitable memorial for those who fought
and died for our Nation during the Vietnam war, should have such broad and
bipartisan support.
A long and a painful process has brought us to this moment
today. Our Nation, as you all know, was divided by this war. For too long we
tried to put that division behind us by forgetting the Vietnam war and, in the
process, we ignored those who bravely answered their Nation's call, adding to
their pain the additional burden of our Nation's own inner conflict.
Over the last few years, I have encouraged and I have been
heartened to witness an enormous change in the attitude of Americans toward
those who served in Vietnam. A Nation healing and reconciliation is a good
sight to behold from the viewpoint of the Presidency, and we are ready at least
to acknowledge more deeply and also more publicly the debt which we can never
fully pay to those who served.
The word "honor" has been used so often and
sometimes so carelessly—especially in public ceremonies—that there's a danger
that it might lose its meaning. More importantly, we might forget what its true
meaning is and, with it, the concept of duty and a standard of behavior and
sense of humility that's precious and also irreplaceable. And when I say today
that I am honored to be able to sign this resolution into law, I use that word
with great care.
This is an important step toward the establishment of a
permanent memorial for the young men and women who died in the service of our
country in Vietnam; for those who, despite all our efforts, are still missing
in Southeast Asia; and for all those who served and returned. We are honored to
have a small part in offering this overdue recognition. They honored us and
their country with their service, and no delay in recognizing them can lessen
the value of their personal sacrifice.
Perhaps even more than those who served, our Nation needs
this memorial as a reminder of what happened in the past, what was lost, and
our need to learn from our experience. We need it also as a physical place
where we can pay tribute to those young lives, what they meant, to kind of
place apart, to recall the meaning of the word "honor," so that the
word can retain all its simple and austere grandeur.
In honoring those who answered the call of duty, we do not
honor war. But we honor the peace they sought, the freedoms that they fought to
preserve, and the hope that they held out to a world that's still struggling to
learn how to settle differences among people and among nations without
resorting to violence.
All of us must be willing to sacrifice to protect freedom
and to protect justice, but we are not called upon to sacrifice equally. In
every war there are some who are called on to make the ultimate sacrifice of
their own lives. Some come home with bodies that must bear daily pain for the
rest of their lives. A tragically large number were still missing when the war
in Vietnam was over, and we'll continue to exert the fullest possible effort to
account for all those who are still missing.
It's a pointless act of inhumanity and cruelty to prolong
the vigil of those who love, waiting for those for so many years, and it's a
vigil that's shared not just among the families directly, but shared by all
Americans.
At the time of our White House reception in honor of Vietnam
veterans last year, Phil Caputo, the author of "A Rumor of War",
permitted me to read from his book. I was greatly moved by this passage, as
were the others at the time, and I feel it even more appropriate to read here
today the same words, what Caputo wrote in 1976, I believe, about the death of
one of his close friends named Walter Levy, who was killed in Vietnam trying to
save a fellow soldier, and I quote:
So much was lost with you, so much talent and
intelligence and decency.
You were the first from our class of 1964 to die.
There were others, but you were the first and more: you embodied the best that
was in us. You were a part of us, and a part of us died with you, the small
part that was still young, that had not yet grown cynical, grown bitter and old
with death. Your courage was an example to us, and whatever the rights or
wrongs of the war, nothing can diminish the rightness of what you tried to do.
Yours was the greater love. You died for the man you tried to save, and you
died pro patria. It was not altogether sweet and fitting, your death, but I am
sure you died believing it was pro patria. You were faithful.
To die for one's country is a sacrifice that should never be
forgotten.
Caputo goes on to say that our country has not matched the
faithfulness of that war hero, because our country tried to forget the war;
that 11 years after his friend's death, Caputo wrote, there were no monuments,
no statues, no plaques, no memorials, because such symbols would make it harder
to forget.
I didn't read that part aloud last year. Now, we'll build a
memorial to the Walter Levys who died on the other side of the world,
sacrificing themselves for others, sacrificing themselves for us and for our
children and for our children's children. With this memorial we will say with
Caputo: "We loved you for what you were and what you stood for." We
will prove with this monument that we care, and that we will always remember.
