"DUTY, HONOR, AND COUNTRY"
Yours is the profession of arms, the will
to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory,
that if you lose, the nation will be destroyed, that the very obsession
of your public service must be duty, honor, country.
Others will debate the controversial issues,
national and international, which divide men's minds. But serene, calm,
aloof, you stand as the nation's war guardians, as its lifeguards from
the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiators in the arena
of battle. For a century and a half you have defended, guarded, and protected
its hallowed traditions of liberty and freedom, of right and justice.
Let civilian voices argue the merits or
demerits of our processes of government; Whether our strength is being
sapped by a deficit financing indulged in too long, by Federal paternalism
grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown
too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes
grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties
are as thorough and complete as they should be.
These great national problems are not
for your professional participation or military solution. Your guidepost
stands out like a tenfold beacon in the night: Duty, honor, country.
You are the leaven which binds together
the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come
the great captains who hold the nation's destiny in their hands the moment
the war tocsin sounds.....
The long, gray line has never failed us.
Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue
and gray, would rise from their white crosses, thundering those magic words:
Duty, honor, country.
This does not mean that you are warmongers.
On the contrary, the soldier above all other people prays for peace, for
he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always
in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, the wisest of all philosophers:"Only
the dead have seen the end of war."
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur
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