Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you.
As I recovered at Walter Reed, I worried about the soldiers who pulled me out of my helicopter that Friday afternoon. Would they make it back okay? And what about all the other soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen who were also putting their lives on the line every day?
Without the brave efforts of all the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines and their families, this Nation, along with our allies around the world, would not stand so boldly, shine so brightly and live so freely.
Standing beside each one of our brave soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines is a loving, supportive, and dedicated family whose sacrifice is a true service to our great nation.
But it's been a great, humbling - and I've been very honored to have the opportunity to serve and to lead and to be the representative of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who are in Washington. And it's been the greatest honor of my life.
We Marines believe that God gave America the greatest gift He could bestow to man while he lived on this earth -freedom. We also believe He gave us another gift nearly as precious - our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast Guardsmen, and Marines - to safeguard that gift and guarantee no force on this earth can ever steal it away.
He [President Franklin D. Roosevelt] died in harness, and we may well say in battle harness, like his soldiers, sailors and airmen who died side by side with ours and carrying out their tasks to the end all over the world. What an enviable death was his.
My great-great-uncle Joseph Lorenz was a Private 1C in the U.S. Army. He was a member of the American Expeditionary Force, Rainbow Division, and died fighting in World War I in France.
The American people should not wonder where their military leaders draw the line between military advice and political preference. And our nation's soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines should not wonder about the political leanings and motivations of their leaders.
'Home' is an important word for our soldiers, sailors, airmen and women. They regularly put their lives at risk in order to make us feel safe in our own homes while fighting to provide overseas communities with that same security.
I say we must have a movement that brings those troops home and launch a crusade to transform our school buildings, we launch a crusade to see to it that every citizen has adequate and affordable housing, we launch a crusade to make universal health care. We need not soldiers anymore in the world. We've had enough of them in western history.
We all know that Washington families are making a tremendous commitment to winning the War on Terror. Tonight, more than 22,000 Washington state soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are risking their lives under hostile fire in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the globe.
Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen volunteer to protect and defend this country and all its citizens, and do so with honor, integrity and excellence. Our nation continually asks them to do more and more, with less and less.
One does not have to be a 'climate change denier' to see that a degree of skepticism about the present consensus might be in order....Most likely, now - as in the past - many analysts have become carried away by the results of their models, which purport to look into a far distant future, and have convinced themselves that they must embark on a crusade to enlighten others.
The war does not end when you come home. It lives on in memories of your fellow soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who gave their lives. It endures in the wound that is slow to heal, the disability that isn't going away, the dream that wakes you at night, or the stiffening in your spine when a car backfires down the street.
It is simply unthinkable that we will ever again send overseas a great expeditionary force of armed men.
I have heard what poets write about women. They rhyme and rhapsodize and lie. I have watched sailors on the shore stare mutely at the slow-rolling swell of the sea. I have watched old soldiers with hearts like leather grow teary-eyed at their king's colors stretched against the wind. Listen to me: these men know nothing of love. You will not find it in the words of poets or the longing eyes of sailors. If you want to know of love, look to a trouper's hands as he makes his music. A trouper knows.