 Stone cannot encompass spirit, nor can memory truly be frozen in the shrines that many wrecked. But in granite and marble, in field stone and clay, we find the symbols of our desire to preserve what is enduringly valuable in our lives and in our honored history. The American soldier is so honored and has always been. In this tomb of the unknowns on a green slope in Arlington National Cemetery, the bodies of three heroes lie buried. The unknown soldier of World War I and the recently interred unidentified heroes of World War II and Korea, symbols of all heroes who fell in the wars of the nation's maturity. In village squares and public grounds, their memory and the memory of all their brothers in arms before them are enshrined in a chain of tribute that reaches back across the developing story of the nation itself. Its recognition of its manifest destiny to be strong enough to support freedom beyond its own shores. The wild opening of its western territories. The tragic strife of the Civil War which tested its ability to stand as a union. The painful years of its early growth. Back to the beginning. To the men who began building that history. The nation's history. And with it, the history of the army which has fought to preserve the nation's integrity and indeed its very life. These were the first, these embattled farmers as the poet Emerson called them, the Minutemen, who stood at Concord Bridge and fired the shot heard round the world. The American army was born. Brought to life by angry militiamen who turned back a British raid on the supply stores in Massachusetts Colony and drove the red-coated troops of the king in a rout back to Boston. They began their great adventure as a group of individuals. United at first only by something intangible in the already emerging American spirit. A sense of the importance of independence. They came down from their farms and out of their shops to take up arms with the idea only of standing up for their rights against a domination which had become more oppressive with the years. Fate gave them a leader and under him they built a unity and arms of fighting force in which they could wage their growing rebellion with a hope of victory. The Continental Congress gave their struggle a direction that was breathtaking in its audacity and sweeping in its vision of man's rights. And now the soldier of the revolution was fighting for more than a vaguely felt idea. He was fighting for the creation of a new and free nation under handicaps only dimly understood by the 20th century American mind. But to the glory of his own wondrous age and the survival of freedom for all the ages that would do him honor he endured. Through black defeats and incredible hardships he endured and went on to shape the victories of Trenton and Saratoga. And finally the splendid triumph of Yorktown where the dream of liberty at last took life. Because of his own beliefs simple and clean and the rightness of his cause the American army held together in its infancy. And for the first time in the history of the new world the quality of patriotism became part of a soldier's queen. The young nation which the soldier had won with his blood flourished. A bedrock of political morality gave it a base on which its hard-bought freedom for its people could grow. The acquisition of vast new lands gave it the opportunity to expand physically. But before the country was 30 years old war came again. The conflict with the British this time was over British interference with the rights of American seamen. Army's most illustrious victory was won at New Orleans when it drove the invading British back into the sea. Although this war of 1812 was primarily a naval one the country learned its need for a professional standing army. Posterity inherited a national anthem when a young American named Francis Scott Key was moved to make his tribute to the unconquerable Star Spangled Banner. When after the British shelling of Fort McHenry he saw the flag still flying. The lone star state of Texas prepared the preface to the next chapter in America's history. A Mexican possession Texas won its independence after a long and bloody struggle during which a band of 187 Americans met death and heroic fame in their brave but doomed defense of the Alamo. When Texas became a part of the United States after its independence trouble between the United States and Mexico began to broil. And finally erupted into war. The acquisition of new territories which the soldier won in the war with Mexico. The nation was growing in strength and productivity but with development had come also internal tensions in the young citadel of self government. Tensions which finally exploded and brought down in ruins the dream of peaceful union. The most tragic of all wars that of brother against brother was forced upon the nation. The Confederate soldier had behind him the unified effort of a culture that was actually a way of life. He had as well a super military organization backing him. But more than these he had the hot and defiant pride of the rebel with the rebels formidable confidence that his will shall prevail. A Confederate poet wrote the world shall behold in many a distant port another flag on furl. And from the rapidity with which the southerner began chalking up victories he looked as if it might happen magnificence that did him high credit. And in the end it was not so much his spirit as the resources of his army that failed him. In performance the Union army suffered at first from an overconfidence and a lack of unity. But in the crucible of combat these were corrected. By a mid war the Union soldier emerged as one of the most effective fighters in the history of warfare. The Civil War has many distinctions in the annals of arms. It was the first modern war. It was a war of sweeping movement. It was a war of mass fire. Spectacular plans were brilliantly executed. Its campaigns are still studied as classics of combat. No war that America ever fought cut so deeply into the nation's heart. Figures in blue and gray who stood against each other on a succession of battlefields whose names are now part of our heritage. Created images that would never be far from the American mind. Their shadows locked in mortal combat on the dusty fields of a century ago are the sentinels of a nation's conscience. Telling over and over for every succeeding age how dearly bought is the unity which makes this nation one and indivisible. And it was the soldier from the north who prevailed. His industrial power was superior. His supply of manpower widened. And in the perspective of history his heroic sacrifice gave us the Union forever. With the guns of the Civil War still the nation could turn its attention once more to the great challenge of its physical expansion. The settling of the lands that lay beyond the Mississippi. Pioneer America was on the move. But the challenge brought its own enemy. The Indian who had resisted the white man's settlement of the new continent from the beginning had grown bold and powerful in the years the country was absorbed in its struggle for the Union. Now he was able to show in fear strength his opposition to this extension into the buffalo hunting grounds. To the soldier fell the harsh task of bringing safety to the great west. 300,000 Indians roamed the plains. The army at its peak numbered scarcely more than 2,500. From the Rio Grande to Canada. From the Mississippi to the Pacific. The soldier was the arm of the national authority. Against nation after nation of Indian tribes he fought to make it secure. A brother to danger. Enduring the grim life of the frontier. Dying his lonely death on a stretch of parts prairie beyond the site. And even at times beyond the interest of the civilization he served. He did more than his duty. One general officer wrote in tribute to this soldier of the west. Did more than his duty. And in the doing he wrote a page of glory which will be read and thrilled to so long as men prize courage. Finally at the end of the flaming 19th century the west was secure. From sea to sea the American nation now stretched strong and free and vital. Gilded steadily to the peaceful tools of production. But fires were burning beyond the national borders. Which would seal into history's new page the next mission for the US soldier. That mission took him away from his own land in the summer of 1898. Across the water to Cuba. Which was fighting for its independence from Spanish domination. The Spanish-American war was a short one. The soldier handled himself well. Members the soldier of that war. Chiefly for his most significant and decisive battle. His dashing charge up San Juan Hill. And nearby El Cani. On the approach to Santiago on the first day of July. Free in this war brought the Philippines. Puerto Rico and Guam. As well as Cuba into US possession. And the United States would forever after be involved in the affairs of the world at large. The next involvement for the soldier was in his own hemisphere. A punitive expedition into Mexico in 1916. In pursuit of Pancho Villa. The Mexican bandit who had destroyed American life and property on the border. In the perspective of history it was a minor campaign. But it was important to American self-interest and self-respect. And it prepared the army for the most challenging test it had ever had. Saw more than 2 million Americans in arms. The dough boy went into the war that gave him his first experience with Europe's geography. Coggy and idealistic. He sang as he marched through the dust of the ruined French villages. And the weary and bleeding continent took new hope from his confidence. And his exuberance. For men mature quickly under fire. But the spirit and the effectiveness with which he fought. Earned for him a high place in the respect of all the nations of the earth. A British poet wrote in his tribute. You traveled across a watching world. To show how heroes die. Through the Holocaust of Contignier. Chateau Thierry. Bellow Wood. The Mark. The flaming horror of the Argonne Forest. And the Great War came to an end. The world was truly ready for peace. Certainly the veteran of that war. Hoped he had brought about a world that would be free of war forever after. Hope for peace however. Was soon to be doomed by events taking place in other parts of the world. Nazi Germany's march on Poland in 1939. The threat of conflict burst into shattering reality. War of a dimension the world had never seen was introduced. Before it was ever involved. America began preparing its men. The long conversion from citizen to serviceman began. Sometimes it seemed like a hopeless task. But almost before they knew it. America's sons were soldiers. Their training for war however. Began under conditions something less than realistic. It was still possible to believe that America could remain untouched. And war still seemed remote. And now America was committed. With its every resource. To seeing the grim war to its bitter end. And its job would be the soldier's job. And it would be the soldier's job. And it would be the soldier's job. And it would be the soldier's job. And its job would be the soldier's job. Some of the sad and heart twisting qualities of war never change. And some change enormously. World War II had almost the entire globe at its battlefield. It brought new dimensions to the experience of combat. The soldier fought everywhere. And he went into battle every way he could get there. Through the air. Over the seas. He had a hundred beaches large and small. In the vast world of the Pacific. He fought his way through jungle hells whose names the world had never heard before. And on the other side of the globe. He inched his perilous way through the bleeding fields of Europe. He fought in villages where his fathers had fought before him. In towns grown old in peace. In cities which for centuries had stored the flower of man's western culture. Destruction lay in the wake of every victory won. The blood of heroes colored every mile of ground. Biting weariness. And aching loneliness lay behind every statistic of success. But through city after city. The victorious soldier pushed on. And the jubilation of the people was his reward. On the other side of every liberated city lay the war again. Another battle to win. Another mile or another twenty to travel. Another day to fight. Through three and a half years of holocaust the soldier moved. In an agonizing but relentless march. Pushing back the encroachments of aggression. Until the enemy finally lay crushed and defeated. How jubilant was the taste of victory. How sweet the rewards of peace. A bruised and suffering world stirred again to the triumphant strains of victory. For the soldier it was the proud end of a long and arduous road. All the remote places where he had traveled. From all the scattered battlefields he returned home again to find a soldier's welcome. He returned to the life he had left. As citizen soldiers for generations before him had done. And because the world he had preserved seemed at last so ready for peace. He turned his pursuits to peaceful things. But despite man's bright hope. Aggression had not yet been eliminated from the world. The fragile peace was suddenly shattered. The communist led North Korean army plunged across the line which separated it from free South Korea. Now once again the soldier was on foreign soil. Making his soldiers way through the kind of troubles which had always beset his brothers. Fighting the soldiers fight. The kind of fight on which victory and everywhere behind him had depended. He added new names to the honor roll of heroes. He added new listings to the roster of once unfamiliar places. Which would forever after be part of the nation's history. Taishan. Seoul. Port Jop Hill. And it added another page of valor to the soldier's record. And like all wars the cost was high. For bravery is not cheap. Nor are any of the qualities which give a man what it takes to stand and fight. What are the beliefs for which men will fight. They range from faith in a nation which strives under God to achieve its destiny. From a capacity for honor that springs perhaps from something fundamental in man's spirit. From these all across the broad range of human experience. Through eight generations and a dozen wars the individual American within reach of the enemy's cannon has searched for his personal identity with a massive forces of history which have made him and his rifle the agents of the national interest. And because he has in his own way in his own time found his answer his nation has found in every succeeding test a victor's strength. He has fought well this soldier of America's heritage. He won a nation built it and defended it against every threat to destroy it. And his most enduring monument is that nation itself.