Wednesday, May 17, 2006
'You will leave footprints'
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld tells VMI graduates freedom continues to be earned "by each new generation."
Sam Dean | Roanoke Times
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld addresses the 240 cadets graduating from VMI.
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LEXINGTON -- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told cadets graduating from Virginia Military Institute to be proud of their military education and use their knowledge to seek out challenges that will benefit themselves, others and America as a whole.
"Whether your service is in uniform or out, serve a cause worthy of yourself," Rumsfeld said in delivering a commencement speech Tuesday to about 4,000 people in attendance in Cameron Hall on the VMI campus. "And resolve to live a life knowing you will leave footprints."
Of the 240 cadets graduating, 113 were commissioned as officers in the U.S. military on Monday. That's just over 47 percent of the class, a percentage that VMI's superintendent, Gen. J.H. Binford Peay III, called especially commendable in a time of war.
President Bush and his administration, in particular Rumsfeld himself, have faced increased criticism in recent weeks over the Iraq war.
Rumsfeld made no major announcements during his address Tuesday and stuck largely to a prepared speech. He warmly greeted cadets and shook their hands, patting some on the back as they crossed the stage to accept their diplomas.
But Rumsfeld's address to the graduates appeared in some ways to be a reaffirmation of the U.S. invasion of Iraq following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
"Yours is the first class to have entered VMI since that horrible day. Tell your fellow citizens that since then our forces have gone on the offense," he said.
Rumsfeld warned the cadets that they may find those who feel patriotism and honor are outdated notions, and who dwell on America's imperfections.
"Being a cynic is the easiest thing in the world. You can sit back and heckle from the cheap seats while others serve, storm beaches, build nations and meet their destinies," he said.
Rumsfeld acknowledged that the immediate accessibility of information through 24-hour news programs, the Internet, satellite phones and blogs has given the American people access to "things they never saw before about the realities of conflict and postwar violence. And they will need the help of those of you who have studied military strategy to better understand what it is they are seeing."
He noted that while the D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France is remembered as one of the great American victories of World War II, historians also remember it as a series of strategic and tactical errors based on imperfect intelligence that cost lives.
"Actually it was undoubtedly both of those things. Which of course is the nature of warfare."
A former Navy pilot, Rumsfeld also told the cadets, many of whom will report for military training next month, that America's freedom was not inherited, it was earned, and continues to be earned "by each new generation of Americans, as it must be."
In speaking of VMI's long tradition of duty and honor dating back to when the school was founded in 1839, Rumsfeld and Peay encouraged graduates to be proud of their VMI education.
"Wear your ring, display your diploma and remember at all times you are a VMI graduate," Peay said.
