Sen. John McCain's Outburst Leaves All Americans Scratching Their Heads
thank you my dear an old friend and a dear friend and a great American patriot
and a person who epitomized the best that I have known in the United States
Senate you know they that are lying about if
you want to friend in Washington go out and buy a dog well this is my friend and
was my friend for easily thirty years and speaking that if you allow me to
part just for a second there's one person here who is been a hero of mine
for many many years and that is the first American field of you every dollar
is who is there for eight years ever to you here
thank you to the brigade of Midshipmen yes I was once one of you six decades
ago in the age of solo I was I was an undistinguished member of
the class of 1958 Maya my superiors didn't hold me in very high esteem in
those days their disapproval was measured in the hundreds of miles of
extra duty all marched in my time here
since you are not easily through I have to tell you to be honest I wasn't too
thrilled to be here back then and there's
and I was relieved to graduate from the white of my class as the neighbor as the
Naval Academy was to see me better I
wasn't the first or last midshipman to have had a complicated relationship with
this place but I realized a little later in life but I had underestimated the
effectiveness of my education here I hadn't very appreciated all that the
Academy was trying to teach me we were all electrical engineering majors in
those days I got over I would have made a very good one but the Academy taught
me other lessons which I would find later when I needed them most and
somehow I managed to stick lessons about sacrificing for something more important
than yourself lessons about courage and humility about friendship about the
meaning and responsibilities of varna my appreciation for those lessons for the
friendships I made here bring me back often sweaters my gratitude for the life
of adventure the Naval Academy prepared before for the privilege of being a good
player in the story of America that the Navy made possible I grew up in
adventure it's an eventful times and I've served in eventful times I've seen
America become a more just and prosperous country coming over closer to
the ideals set down by our founders I've seen America organized and read an
international order based on Liberty which was security through markets and
the rule of law that liberated millions upon millions from tyranny and poverty
but we have only look back upon my own lifetime to understand how a hundred
thought those victories were my friends I was born in 1936 in February that year
German German troops react five the one the Rhineland and Europe's
war-weary democracies failed to respond in March a radical militarist Prime
Minister was appointed in Japan in May fascist Italy and XD Ethiopia and in
June getting injured insult to injury Germany's Max Schmeling knocked out Joe
Lewis in the second round of the about in Yankee Stadium in July Franklin's
forces from North Africa landed in Spain and the Spanish Civil War began in
August the Summer Olympics took place in Berlin and although we Americans
remember those games for the stirring achievements of Jesse Owens at the time
they will understood this assembly of Germany's resurgence and by some as a
vindication of Hitler's leadership fascism we were told might be the wave
of the future that same month the Soviet government began its infamous show
trials of form of a Soviet leaders and many observers say of Stalin sham
justice as a necessary step in the consolidation of a socialist alternative
to depression or a democracy another wave of violent purges soon followed and
again found its apologists while claiming lives of hundreds of thousands
the way was soon engulfed in another world war the human economic and
spiritual total of that conflict remains in calcul to this day 682 Naval Academy
graduates gave their lives in the struggle against Nazi Germany Italy and
Japan this is a tragic but comprehendible loss but what are we to
make of a number like 60 million war dead of the hundreds of thousands of
villages of cities destroyed and the entire resources spent that might have
been put to humane and productive use had our enemies not
race their ideologies of conquest and domination how do we make sense of the
human capacity for evil after Auschwitz mankind look different and yet the
generation of leaders that brought the Democratic powers through this storm of
that war did not succumb to despair their sense of responsibility in history
demanded they build new institutions dedicated to the prevention of another
global calamity which they did with remarkable vision and persistence The
Statesman who birthed the successful liberal international law order after
World War two laughs three basic truths first the tyranny is always a threat to
peace because it's an affront to all humanity's natural desire for freedom
second that liberal institutions are nevertheless fragile and must be
affirmed with conviction at home and abroad further at the American example
an American leadership are indispensable to secure a peaceful and prosperous
future heart failure to remain engaged in Europe and enforce the hard-won peace
of 1918 and made that clear there could be no more isolationism no more tired
resignation no more America first fascism was defeated in 1945 communism
eventually succumbed after a long and costly Cold War containment often
through military means was vitally important but ultimately communism
collapsed because Soviet tyranny could not meet the basic spiritual and
material needs of its terrorized subjects while the American example
brought unprecedented happiness and prosperity to millions of ordinary
people as we wrestled over common justices in our society the Soviet
system ossified and was sustained only by its propaganda and secret police
it couldn't prepare Elementor in the global struggle for hearts and minds
while away them understood this and had the moral confidence to a throw
America's commitment to the spread of democracy present to Herbert Walker Bush
handled the collapse of communism in Europe with consummate skill under his
stewardship the basis for lasting post Cold War order was firmly established a
renewal of the liberal framework for international cooperation that we and
our allies had erected in 1943 who could have imagined in the depths of the Cold
War that a collapsing Soviet Union still a nuclear superpower would peacefully
accede to the reunification of Germany or to the independence of oil at
satellite states and yet it happened with the contrast between the whole
atmosphere of 1991 and the current circumstances of our world is a stark
point we have been in the mental element for the success of democracy seemed
assured for a time which the subjection to which in which the seductions of
authoritarian we will find favor with many then self-interested seductions of
authoritarian will leadership excuses nation may put aggression with weak
rationalizations when ethnic grievances haunt the old and religious fanaticism
fires the minds of the mystic guided young how did we end up here why do many
Americans ignore our moral and historical knowledge and seek escape
from the world we've led so successful there are many wise answers to those
questions my own is we are asleep to the necessity of our worship of our world
leadership and to the opportunities and real dangers of this world we are sweet
than our echo chambers where our views are always affirmed an information that
contradiction is always fake we will sleep in our polarized politics
which exaggerated sour differences let's escape those instead of answers and
insist we get all our way all the time from a system of government based on
compromised principle cooperation and restraint all there are the
association's rules values and up aspiration that comprising international
order we have superintended the three quarters of a century are under
gathering attacked from regimes a desire that desire will less just and less free
and more corrupt and they are under attack from forces within liberal
democracies themselves parties that preach resentful nationalism rather than
enlightened self-interest nativism rather than equal justice it's time to
wake up I believe in Americans were capable of
better I've seen it we're hopeful compassionate people and we still have
leaders who will uphold the values that made America great and a beacon to the
oppressed but I don't took that for granted we have to fight they have to
fight against propaganda and crackpot conspiracy theories we have to fight
isolation there's a protectionist and the nativism we have to defeat those who
would worsen our divisions we have to remind our sons and daughters that we
became the most powerful nation on earth by tearing down walls not building
but that isn't your job not directly it belongs to those of us who hold office
and are responsible for making sure you're sent where you're needed and
equipped and ready for your missions you will be asked to defend America's
interests overseas and thereby to defend the ideas that encompass and transcend
those interests you may protect the International order that American
politics with all its inefficiencies and human
frailties has done so much to create many of you will risk everything for
your country you will make sacrifices for your fellow Americans who won't be
asked to make sacrifices for you that you're calling thank you for accepting
it I promise there will be compensations for the hard times you've endured you
will have lives of adventure you will have the best company and you will know
a satisfaction far more sublime than pleasure I know that because I'm not the
only McCain to have been prepared for that duty by the traditions and values
imparted to me here by the example of other Berta federal Americans who walk
through these gates my father was here and his father before him like me their
standing was closer to the bottom than the top of their class
my son Jack is a nonconformist in the family he managed to me he reached the
upper half of his class even to be a midshipman officer but his forebears a
less accomplished Midshipmen nevertheless left here to devote the
rest of their lives to our country in war and peace good times in bed and each
of us considered himself to be the luckiest man on earth I know what you
will risk and what you will receive in return I know America is lucky to have
you and that you will think yourselves lucky to serve America even in the worst
of times and they come for most of us you'll know that to serve this country
is to serve its ideals the ideas that consider every child on earth as made in
the image of God and endowed with dignity and the rights to life liberty
and the pursuit of happiness it is a it is a noble cause it is your
cause and it's worth living and dying for
I have sometimes unwittingly and often imperfectly served that cause all my
adult life like your service mine began here in this place of honor and honors
demands I arrived the rebel without a cause and left much the same but I would
discover that a sense of honour had been imparted to me here that would speak to
me in the darkest hours so I come back again and again to the place where I
learned to dread dishonor and from where I embarked on an eventful life in good
company in the service of my country and its great cause may your lives be as
lucky as mine Godspeed semper fidelis fair winds and following seas
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