ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin advised newly commissioned officers on the U.S. Naval Academy on Friday that they’re able to “defend our democracy with honor, braveness and dedication.”
Austin, talking through the ceremony on the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium after President Joe Biden addressed graduates final 12 months and Vice President Kamala Harris delivered remarks in 2021, acknowledged the Navy’s function in coaching allies, serving to increase Ukraine’s maritime capabilities in its combat in opposition to Russian invasion and bringing reduction to worldwide battle zones.
“Class of 2023, wherever your profession takes you, remind the world of what you stand for — and what America stands for: Honor. Braveness. And dedication. Democracy. Liberty. And the rule of regulation,” Austin advised 1,018 graduates on the academy’s commissioning ceremony.
The secretary mentioned naval officers have a particular understanding of the ability of teamwork, and “we’d like that spirit for the essential mission that you just’re all right here to shoulder.”
Austin mentioned U.S. Marines are coaching alongside allies in Japan and the Philippines to strengthen deterrence within the Indo-Pacific. He additionally mentioned the Navy is driving ahead the AUKUS partnership with Australia and the U.Okay.
In Europe, he mentioned, U.S. sailors are working shoulder-to-shoulder with NATO allies.
He advised the graduating class that their management will probably be on the heart of American efforts for a extra peaceable future.
“Our opponents brazenly problem that imaginative and prescient,” he mentioned. “They need to exchange the hard-won postwar system of guidelines and rights with a lawless world of autocracy and aggression. However the American flag atop a U.S. Navy ship has lengthy been the image of hope for a extra free and safe world.”
The secretary famous that the category rose to the problem of the COVID-19 pandemic of their first 12 months on the academy.
“It separated you out of your classmates as you had been simply beginning to really feel like a household, however you hung in there,” Austin mentioned. “You took care of one another.”
The category included 751 males and 267 ladies. There have been 744 graduates who had been commissioned as Navy ensigns, together with 539 males and 205 ladies. There have been 257 commissioned as 2nd lieutenants within the Marine Corps, together with 198 males and 59 ladies. The newly commissioned officers will serve a minimum of 5 years.
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