Fort Drum, NY
Thanks, Dr. Hicks. Kath, I’m actually proud to be right here with you right now. You and Secretary Austin proceed to show and act in your dedication to supporting our army and their households. Thanks.
I’m grateful to the Garrison and the tenth Mountain Division management crew for his or her heat welcome, and for internet hosting us right now. And I wish to say a particular thanks to the USO for placing collectively this glorious lunch.
Coming right here to Fort Drum is my privilege and an honor. As a result of, because the daughter of Signalman Don Jacobs, who served within the Pacific in World Battle II, because the mother of Main Beau Biden, and as a nana who watched her two little grandchildren placed on courageous smiles whereas their father served in Iraq, you’re my neighborhood. You’re my army household. And household is the whole lot.
So, I’m grateful to get to know you right now and listen to your tales. And I need you to know that I’m going to deliver these again residence to my husband, your President, in order that we are able to higher serve army households throughout the nation and in communities like this one. Your well being and your happiness matter to us.
As you already know, we have now an all-volunteer pressure—and have for 50 years. We don’t demand army service of our residents. You step ahead. That’s why we have now to make it possible for service is a chance of dignity and honor, of pleasure and accomplishment—for all the household.
We are going to solely be capable of preserve a powerful voluntary pressure if we don’t pressure our troops to decide on between their love of nation and their love of the households who serve alongside them. Meaning giving all of you the help you may have earned, so you’ll be able to construct good lives—lives that make your entire household proud.
Becoming a member of Forces, my White Home initiative to help army and veteran households, caregivers, and survivors, is working exhausting to get you the assets and alternatives your service deserves.
So let me shut with these ideas:
Might the friendships we make right here heat our hearts and maintain us even via the coldest winters.
Might we inform the story of your neighborhood with dignity, boldness, and reality—so that every one Individuals perceive the sacrifices that you simply make, each in instances of battle and instances of peace.
Might our gratitude transcend phrases to grow to be motion—working tirelessly, collectively, to construct a nation that’s worthy of your sacrifice.
And will God bless our troops, their households, caregivers, and survivors.
Amen.
With all my coronary heart: thanks in your service and your sacrifice.
