Those Guardsmen are the physical manifestation of what we, the uniformed services, do every day: protect the country. For the first time, the country can see them doing what they’ve been doing all along, for the past 226 years.
I hear some of you out there, saying we failed. In a small sense, we did. We couldn’t stop them. We may fail to stop them again.
But in a larger sense, we did NOT fail. I promise you this: we will not be defeated. We will not let anybody make slaves out of us or our children. They killed some of us, but they cannot make us do what they want. We will not back down. The United States citizen will always be his own sovereign.
I am doing my dead level best to kill as many of my country’s enemies as I possibly can. And I look forward to the day when I get laid off, because there’s not enough work to go around anymore. But for now, business is boomin’, pardon the pun.
There are ways to keep that suicide bomber from getting to you, and those Guardsmen are the very last line of defense, albeit the one everybody can see.
But the rest of us are there, too. Folks, you’ve got to have courage and heart. The bad guys think we don’t have the guts to do anything to 'em, and for far too long, they’ve been right. They believe we will run out of nerve, that we can’t go all the way to the end. They’ve seen us turn tail before, and they think that’s what we’ll always do. But we can’t. We’ve got to fight.
Screw your courage to the sticking point, and don’t let 'em see ya sweat. DO NOT use defeatist language, don’t act like you’re whipped. You can go farther, and you have to. You need to understand something: national morale is everything. John F. Kennedy knew it, and he called on America to prepare for the ‘long, twilight struggle’ with communism. So must all of us prepare for another such struggle, against another evil enemy.
You are not beaten unless you think you are. We are our father’s sons, and we are descended from the feistiest, toughest, cleverest, and finest people on Earth. Marvel at the memory of the men that stormed Normandy, and believe that you, too, are the savior of your country.
We’ve induged ourselves far too long, and in our comfort, some of us have forgotten that none of this was free, that it was earned for us by better men. Put your head up, throw your chest out and your shoulders back, and act like winners.
And I guarantee we’ll win.