Remarks by Senator John McCain at the Winging-Designation Ceremony
U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) delivered the following remarks today, Friday, January 28, 2011 at the Winging-Designation Ceremony at the Naval Air Station Whiting Field Base in Pensacola, Florida:
"Thank you, Colonel Coakley. Captain Vandiver (Commander of Training Wing Five), Colonel Richard, Captain Montellano, LT Henderson, my fellow aviators, your families and friends. Congratulations.
"Over the years, I've given a good many speeches commending young men and women for successfully completing a rigorous course of instruction, and I've always begun by expressing appreciation for the graduates' families, who I believe deserve an equal share of the credit for the accomplishment. That would seem a little boastful on my part today, since I am one of the parent's here. I guess I can avoid immodesty by appropriately crediting my wife, Cindy, for our son, Jack's many fine qualities, and taking responsibility for any minor flaws he might possess, which we won't mention today. But I will say that I am as proud as any parent here, and as blessed.
"I remember being in similar circumstances many years ago. Obviously, none of you were born when I earned my wings in Pensacola. Many of your parents weren't alive then either. It was a time when the Greatest Generation were in their thirties, buying their first houses, having children. America was led mostly by men who had been born in the 19th Century. It was before the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam; before the great civil rights advances. People still sent telegrams and placed telephone calls through switchboards, and listened to music on the radio and on scratchy vinyl records that were recorded in mono. Elvis was still in the Army, and no one had ever heard of the Beatles. Men wore hats because their father's had, not because they thought it was ironic.
"As I said, it was quite some time ago. In many ways it often seems to me another world entirely. But not today. Not as I look at you, and imagine how you must feel. I think I know how you feel. I think I once felt the same. I was pretty certain back then that I was very lucky to be me.
"Back then, I drove a Corvette and flew A-1s. I loved the thrill of flying; the challenge of it. I loved testing myself and the very expensive machinery the government generously allowed me to operate. And because I assumed in my twenties that I would live forever, I wasn't even very distressed when I found myself in my airplane sitting on the bottom of Corpus Christi Bay one fine day. I swam to the surface, went to my quarters, changed my clothes, took a couple aspirin and headed out for another night's entertainment with my fellow bachelor officers. "Kick the tires and light the fires." I loved the image of a naval aviator. I loved the life. It was fun. So much fun, I don't know how I survived it.
"My memories of that time are happy ones for a reason. I enjoyed every single moment of my life in Pensacola, from learning to fly to blowing my pay at Trader Johns. But I was sent here for more serious purposes than that, and it would take me a while to understand that.
"Subsequent experiences taught me that military service was more than an adventure for people with vivid imaginations and a measure of audacity. It offers admission into history, possibly a big part of history, a much more daunting enterprise than proving one's mettle and with much greater things at stake than personal reputation or even the life and death of soldiers.
"I loved my country then and now. I was reasonably well-read in history, and certainly grasped the uniqueness of America, a country not rooted in land and blood, but in an idea, an inspiring and noble idea. But, as Americans often do, my appreciation of America was more focused on the many advantages and opportunities of American life. Yet the experiences I had as a young naval officer, among them serving in a carrier task force during the Cuban Missile Crisis, gave me a greater perspective on what I had truly committed myself to, even as a very junior officer.
"The defense of our country is important not only to the security of our countrymen and the blessings of life in America. It is important to the world: to the peace and stability of the world and to advancing in a hostile world those ideals we believe are universal. I was part of that great cause, a small and unessential part, but a part nonetheless. And to serve it as well as it deserved I would have to learn to subordinate personal ambitions and conceits, even parts of my nature that I prided myself on, to a much more important good. Of course, I didn't grasp the full import of this revelation until some years later, when my time at war finally arrived.
"In the upheaval of war, that great leveler of ego and distinction, things change. Countries change. History changes. And people change. Life is more precious and more vulnerable, and less your own. You develop as strong a bond, as deep a concern with those who serve beside you as you will ever have with anyone outside your family. And you will discover an insight that many people never will. That your life is bigger and more satisfying the more that it is part of something beyond your self interest.
"When I left Pensacola America was at peace. They were dangerous times. The Cold War threatened the world with mass destruction should it turn hot. The Cuban Missile Crisis would occur a little more than two years later. But World War II and Korea were behind us. And but for a few military advisors deployed there, Vietnam was a little known, far off problem for most Americans.
"As you leave here America has been at war for nearly a decade. After much terrible sacrifice, and many mistakes, our war in Iraq has reached a more successful conclusion than we might have hoped for a few years ago. But we will be involved in combat operations in Afghanistan for at least a few more years. And the prospect for our success there, while better than it was two years ago, is still uncertain.
"I expect many of you will at some point be called to duty there. I have every confidence your service will more than meet the high expectations your country has for you.
"This a challenging time in our history and the history of the world. The world is much changed since I served in the Navy. In the Cold War, we faced a powerful enemy with the means to destroy the entire world. But despite the wars we fought during it, and the cruelty the Soviets inflicted on the captive peoples of its empire, it was a more stable and more predictable world than the one we live in now.
"We face different and more various threats today. From Islamic extremism to the rise of China to cyberterrorism to the depletion of water and fossil fuel supplies to the unique vulnerabilities of a globalized economy, the tasks facing the world's statesmen are many and complex and daunting. History has accelerated, and we must race to keep up with it.
"But your mission is the same as it has always been. You are the defenders of our freedom, the caretakers of our most vital interests, and the custodians of our values, and you will protect us from all threats wherever they originate. We are grateful to you. We admire you. We are indebted to you. And I envy you, the honor you have.
"What we have achieved in this country is very much worth defending. The thought that any American wouldn't believe that saddens me. And we are so invested in this world. Our prosperity, our safety, cannot be protected by retiring from a troublesome world, and building imagined walls to the progress of history. It was our founding belief that America and the world would be far better and more secure were the natural and inalienable rights of life and liberty, the principles of free people and free markets, to be possessed by all humanity. And we have sacrificed greatly to secure those rights for people we never knew in places we had never heard of before. We have done so in defense of our interests as well as our ideals, but we have done so. Very few other nations can make that claim.
"We are blessed to be Americans, not just in times of peace and prosperity. We are part of something providential: a great experiment to prove to the world that democracy is not only the most effective form of government, but the only moral government. And through the years, generation after generation of Americans have held fast to the belief that we were meant to transform history. What greater cause than that could we ever find?
"What I wish every American understood is, despite its attendant risks and sacrifices, military service even for one or two enlistments or for a career is one of the most rewarding experiences you could ever have. Make no mistake, those risks and sacrifices are great and daunting even in peacetime. But few other occupations so completely invest your life with importance, even historic importance, and so well develop your character along lines of excellence. It is an advantage and a satisfaction you will always have that others will never know.
"The global advance of our ideals is not the first responsibility of our military. Our military is not always the best instrument of that cause, though it has certainly served it of necessity and at great sacrifice. But the defense of our possession of them is your responsibility. And no other profession has done that so admirably, so selflessly as the United States Armed Forces. I wish all Americans could have the experience of such sublime service to a greater good that you will now have, and which I was very lucky to have once had, and which began in practice, here, in Pensacola.
"Good luck to you all. May God protect you. And thank you. On behalf of our country and for myself, I can say I am certain we are in good hands."
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