"General Westmoreland, General Grove, distinguished guests, and gentlemen of the Corps!
As I was leaving the hotel this morning, a doorman asked me, "Where
are you bound for, General?" And when I replied, "West Point," he remarked, "Beautiful place. Have you ever been there before?"
"Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate
what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little
cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn."
"The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant
phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker,
and I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to
downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule."
"But these are some of
the things they do: They build your basic character. They mold you
for your future roles as the custodians of the nation's defense.
They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave
enough to face yourself when you are afraid."
"They
teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble
and gentle in success; not to substitute words for actions, not to
seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of
difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm but to
have compassion on those who fall; to master yourself before you
seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is
high."
