Introduction
Thank you for that very warm welcome. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, it is an honor and my distinct pleasure to be here with you today to celebrate Armed Forces Day. It’s always good for my wife Linda and me to come back home to Chattanooga, but especially so to honor America’s all-volunteer force here in the Volunteer State.

Our men and women in uniform are blessed to have the people of Chattanooga on their team. As I stood on the reviewing stand today, I could see on the faces of those who marched past the local community’s overwhelming support for our Armed Forces.

This community understands the meaning of service and sacrifice and fully appreciates what our active duty and reserve forces have done—and are doing—to protect our great nation.

Being at today’s parade stirred some very warm memories. From 1960–1962, I marched in Chattanooga’s Armed Forces Day Parade with Chattanooga High School’s Army ROTC unit.

In fact, in that last year, I did my best to convince Chattanooga City’s principal, Col. Creed Bates, that it made far more sense for me to join him on the reviewing stand instead of marching with my unit with my M-1 carbine on my shoulder.

Unfortunately, the colonel was hearing none of it.

He didn’t just say no, he said, “Hell no .”

So I marched. Many of you who remember Colonel Bates understand this story, I’m sure.

More than 40 years later, I’m glad I finally made it to the reviewing stand, and I couldn’t help but feel that bear of a man’s presence there on the stand with me.
 
After spending nearly 39 years in the United States Navy, four years in Duke NROTC and three years in Chattanooga High School’s Army ROTC, today is the first time in 46 years that I had to ask permission to wear a uniform.

Thank you for the honor of being here today, as we highlight the achievements of our men and women on guard all around the globe.

Duty. Honor. Country. Loyalty and leadership that foster teamwork while rewarding individual initiative.

Values like these helped build America. They are values that led to the nickname of this great state—the Volunteer State.

And values like these are what drive our armed forces. They are values they put into action every day.

It is these young men and women who represent the best our nation has to offer. And since we live in a time when some in our society would work to push news of their success and sacrifice to the margins, or worse yet, denigrate their sacrifice for political opportunity, it is not only right and proper that we honor them; it’s a moral imperative that we do so.

Why Armed Forces Day?
On Memorial Day, we commemorate the sacrifice of those who have fallen in the line of duty.

On Veteran’s Day, we honor the service of those in the past who have worn the uniform in defense of our great nation.

But Armed Forces Day provides a meaningful opportunity to pay special tribute to our men and women in uniform—to all the individuals who are in the service of their country now all over the world.

On Aug. 31, 1949, Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson announced the creation of this Armed Forces Day to replace separate Army, Navy and Air Force Days.

The single-day celebration was a result of the unification of the Armed Forces under the new Department of Defense. Our country celebrated the first Armed Forces Day the following year in 1950.

Armed Forces Day still allows our military services to showcase their individual capabilities and demonstrate what it is they bring to the defense of freedom.

I’m a big believer that each branch of the Service—and each community within those Services—must hone its own unique skill and must constantly strive to be the best at what it does. But, this said, there is no bigger supporter of this common celebration than I.

My former colleagues in the Navy depend not just on the Army but on the unique contributions of Army Airborne, Air Force long-range bombers, Coast Guard drug interdiction and Marine Corps Expeditionary Forces—just as those branches of the service need the Navy’s submarines and Navy Air, and Surface Combatants, and SEALS, and the Medical Corps.

Our Brothers and Sisters in Arms
I stand in awe of the power and the beauty of combined forces working together as a team—just as the world observed on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Today, at least two nations that have never known real freedom in their modern history are taking significant steps toward democracy, and that’s thanks to the men and women of the United States military, the greatest force for liberty and democracy that the world has ever known.

These are steps that are fundamentally right for these countries, but also for our security and well-being here in Chattanooga and across this great land.

But while our enemies have reason to fear our military and its awesome power, our friends know that it can be a perfect instrument of peace in times of crisis.

There was no better example of this than earlier this year when every branch of the American armed forces rushed to help in the wake of one of the most terrible disasters in human history, the tsunami that devastated Southeast Asia.

Ask yourself this question: If not the men and women of the United States military, who else could have possibly undertaken this tremendous humanitarian effort?

But for our active and reserve soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen and Coast Guardsmen, this was simply another day on the job. At times they serve as a deterrent to our enemies, and at others, they deliver aid and comfort to our friends.

There simply isn’t any more powerful and versatile force—driven by individuals who are the best-educated, best-trained and best-equipped in the world.

Just where do we get young men and women like this?

Well, some of them come from right here. They’re your sons and daughters. Your brothers and sisters. Your mothers and fathers. Your friends and neighbors. And everywhere that they’re on duty, they’re making a nation proud.

Today, thousands of citizens of the great state of Tennessee are serving in our armed forces—many of them as part of the National Guard and Reserves. Their commitment has taken them away from family and friends, often suddenly and unexpectedly.

I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for the Guard, as my own Dad served with four different Guard units here in Chattanooga for 13 years after returning from his service in World War II.

Over 170,000 members of the guard and reserves across all branches of the military have been activated to help fight the war on terror—like Chattanooga’s own, the Tennessee Army National Guard’s 196th Field Artillery.

That unit just mobilized, and is currently training at Camp Shelby.  Before long, they’ll deploy to Afghanistan for a year to help train that nation’s new army.

And already overseas are the men and women who are serving in Iraq right now with the Tennessee Army National Guard’s 278th Regimental Combat Team.

Since shipping out for Iraq last November, the 278th, which includes more than 3,200 Tennesseans, has taken up a wide variety of missions in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

It is the largest single deployment of Tennessee National Guard troops since World War II. These are our volunteers.

The fighting spirit of the 278th is embodied in their warrior ethos:

I will always place the mission first.
I will not accept defeat.
I will never quit.
I will not leave a fallen comrade.
I Volunteer Sir, Take Charge!

While our volunteers in the 278th spent months training for combat, the mission they encountered once they got their boots on the ground after the fall of the Iraqi tyranny is presenting unique challenges. Certainly, eliminating the threat posed by the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime and a suicidal cadre of Islamic extremists remains their primary mission.

But in tandem with that goal—toward which the 278th conducted 3,600 combat patrols in its first 90 days in country—the unit is also working to help the Iraqi people build a functioning civil society that recognizes greater personal freedom and liberty.

On Monday, that might mean meeting with local tribal leaders to create municipal budgets and ensure the delivery of basic necessities like clean water and reliable electricity. On Tuesday, it means training Iraqi security forces as they take more responsibility for the stability of their country.

Some other day of the week, it just means being a good neighbor. Consider some soldiers from the 278th. They adopted an Iraqi widow and her nine children. Now, they are helping them find a new home after the family needed to move to make way for a public works project.

Daily demonstrations of dedication, freedom and basic caring are playing out right now all over Iraq and Afghanistan. I’m talking about the same values we Americans hold dear as we live among our neighbors here at home.

It’s those same values that are powering Operation Hands and Feet, an effort where families of the 278th here at home are banding together to collect medical supplies, children's shoes, gloves, clothing and school supplies for the people of Iraq.

The men and women in our armed forces are advancing American interests and American values one person at a time and on their own initiative. And all of you are right there with them in spirit every day.

The Proud Tradition of “The Greatest Generation”
Again I ask, where do we get young men and women like this?

Certainly, in times of greatest need, we’ve never had a shortage of heroes. And as each new generation marches off in defense of our nation, it can draw inspiration from the example of the warriors who preceded them into battle.

As a young naval officer, I was inspired by the exploits of America’s submariners who served in the Pacific in World War II. They faced incredibly stressful conditions in the darkest days of the war. These men didn’t need to be told to take the fight to the enemy as our fleet lay in ruins at Pearl Harbor.

When facing a protected, numerically superior enemy, they charged right into the convoy’s midst on the surface at night, gaining an edge by creating havoc, disruption and chaos—

• like CDR Red Ramage and his crew in Parche, in a single, furious action, firing 19 torpedoes from bow and stern tubes with deadly effect, using small arms and machine gun fire to battle the enemy … sinking over 23,000 tons of shipping the enemy sorely needed.

When the enemy was anchored inside an uncharted harbor, our heroes made their own charts—

• like CDR Mush Morton’s crew in Wahoo, who improvised using a sketch from a geography book to enter a treacherously shallow, heavily patrolled anchorage submerged in broad daylight and destroyed a major concentration of enemy ships in Wewak Harbor.

Submariners represented less than 2 percent of Navy personnel during World War II, but they accounted for more than 55 percent of our enemies’ maritime losses.

The Submarine Force paid a heavy price for success against a determined enemy, bearing the brunt of our own wartime losses:  52 of our 288 submarines—that’s nearly one in five—were lost, and 3,505 WWII submariners remain on eternal patrol.

I’ve spoken with many WWII submariners over the years, and I must tell you that, to a man, these heroes maintain that they were just ordinary men who did what was required when they were called upon in extraordinary times.

These were men who did not set out to be heroes … but not quite “ordinary men”!

Today, thanks to Tom Brokaw, we collectively know these “ordinary men,” along with their fellow World War II veterans, as “The Greatest Generation.” That’s a compliment they rightly earned as they endured the Great Depression, helped save the world from fascism and then returned home to build a prouder and stronger post-war America.

Conclusion
And now today’s generation, those in the services on this Armed Forces (recognition) Day, are continuing this legacy.

One more story.

In the days just before the fall of Baghdad two years ago, CNN correspondent Martin Savidge was embedded with the 1st Marine Division conducting a live interview with four young marines.

After telling the story of the hardships they faced for the audience here at home, Savidge delivered some good news: He had made arrangements with their unit’s commander for the four to use CNN’s video phone to call their relatives back home.

It was then that the four marines asked if they could give up their call in favor of their platoon sergeant, who hadn’t spoken with his pregnant wife in three months. Savidge quickly agreed.

Savidge, clearly moved and taken aback, was speechless for a moment. Finally, it was all he could do to stammer out, "Where do they get young men like this?"

We’ve heard that question today now several times.

Here’s my answer.

They come from the 278th Regimental Combat Team and the 196th Field Artillery … from Chattanooga, Rossville, Hamilton County, Cleveland, Jasper and Soddy Daisy … and from every city and town in this state from Knoxville to Nashville to Memphis … and from towns and families like these across the nation.

Happy Armed Forces Day. God bless our soldiers, sailors, airmen, National Guardsmen, Coast Guardsmen and Marines.

God bless their families, praying for the safe return of their loved ones.

And God bless these United States of America.