I stare across the beautiful expanse of rolling hills, blanketed by the warmth of the sunlight, and the air of freedom.  All around me stand slender, white, marble markers where the heroes of our country were once laid to rest.  I reach a large rounded platform, chiseled with the bold words of a President who also shed his blood for freedom.  Among his quotes I see, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."  Later, I see a long, dark wall inscribed with over 58,000 names.  I pass my eyes along the wall, trying to read each and every name, hoping that in some, small way I can repay these heroes for their sacrifices.  But the veterans of Vietnam are not just faceless names on a venerated memorial, we see them everyday--on street corners, malls, and even in our own homes.  Today, I stand before you to honor these men for their unselfishness, to honor these countrymen for their patriotism, and to honor these heroes for their courage.

The soldiers of Vietnam unselfishly left their families, their friends, and their freedom to travel to a world of starvation and genocide.  Thanksgiving dinners were replaced by the ravages of starvation seen in village torn between Communism and Democracy.  The joyous hugs and kisses of loved ones were replaced by the annihilation seen in a horrifying array of amputations, bullet holes, and shrapnel wounds.  The freedoms of the Constitution we enjoy each day were non-existent in the jungles of Vietnam.  There, freedom of speech would earn you a bullet, and freedom from cruel and
unusual punishment would not save you from malaria, agent orange, or years of torture in a Hanoi pit of hell.  And yet these men unselfishly followed the orders of their leaders time and time again.
And so they fought in the name of their country, and ours.

Like us, the soldiers of Vietnam grew up in the land of purple mountains' majesty and amber waves of grain.  Beginning from kindergarten, they stood tall each morning to recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the country  that had given them freedom.  And so, when they were called upon by the United States, they did not burn their draft cards or depart for the Canadian border.  These patriots, in the
same way they had once stood for the Pledge of Allegiance, stood again, and accepted their roles in the defense of freedom and democracy of a country half a world away.  These men were patriots.
And so they fought in the name of their country, and ours.

The soldiers of Vietnam defined the word courage.  They fought against an enemy more dedicated than almost any group of warriors in the history of the world.  Vietcong soldiers swept into battle with two alternatives--victory or death; survival was not an option.  And what drove our soldiers to fight against such an enemy?  They fought because our country asked them to.  They fought because
our country said we needed them.  And they fought because they remembered the words of John F. Kennedy when he said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."  These men were courageous. And so they fought in the name of their country, and ours.

I do not stand before you today to tell you of horrors we have never seen nor to defend a conflict that history has proven to be a tragic mistake.  Instead, I ask you to remember the unselfishness, the
patriotism, and the courageousness of those who sacrificed their own lives and own freedom for the lives and freedom of others.  For we are among a general population that has not been able to differentiate between a mistaken conflict ordered by the government, and the soldiers who were ordered to fight in that conflict.  Instead, we immortalize the "free love generation" and forget about those with the truest love of all--the love to lay down a life for a country.  The soldiers of Vietnam have given everything they had to our country and have asked nothing in return, let us now repay them with the honor they deserve.
 

[Excerpts taken from "We Were Soldiers Once and Young" By Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway]