 West Point, June 1962. Here, some 50 miles up the Hudson from New York, June means graduation, the beginning of a career as a regular Army officer, the end of four years of intensive preparation. And at the nation's other service academies each June, the story is much the same. Here on the banks of the Severn River in Maryland, the men of Annapolis are focusing their thoughts on the years ahead as they prepare to begin their active service in the regular Navy or in the Marine Corps. And here in the high, clear-skied mountain country near Denver, the men of the Air Force Academy put an extra measure of snap and precision into their final moments as cadets. For the graduates of all three academies, the challenge ahead is great. Much is going to depend upon them, for from among their disciplined and dedicated ranks will come the soldier statesman of tomorrow. As the oldest of our nation's service academies, as for nearly 160 years produced young leaders whose professional lives were to reflect a profound devotion to the academy's three-word motto, duty, honor, country. Through the years, much has changed, but like the basic principles of our nation itself, this credo is timeless. Ahead for the cadet of today are years fraught with demanding challenge, but behind him is the record of those who have gone before, and it is rich with high achievement. Largely the story of West Point begins with one man, an army colonel known to generations of cadets as the father of West Point, Sylvainus Thayer. From his appointment as superintendent of the Military Academy in 1817, the long gray line dates its beginning as one of the elite military fraternities of the world. West Point in the early 1800s found itself in serious difficulty. As an institution of learning, it was weak, badly organized, and much criticized because of the favoritism which made it a retreat for well-to-do dandies, the pampered sons of the wealthy. The academy needed a strong hand, a man who would be administrator, educator, soldier, and leader. This difficult assignment President Madison gave to Colonel Thayer, and the cadets known to the public as Uncle Sam's bad bargains were soon to change their ways or depart to make way for better officer material. The days of favoritism were over. Thayer's strict programming of the day's routine instituted a way of training that continues in essence to this day. The cadet began to learn what Thayer already knew, that discipline is the key to character, and as a cadet he had to learn to carry out orders quickly and on a rigid schedule before he could be qualified as an officer to give orders to others. As Thayer intended, the work was hard, subjecting the cadet to intense daily pressure, physical, intellectual, emotional. Morning tonight. Many a cadet wrote home about the new discipline at the point and of how the adjustment to it was difficult, and somehow strongly satisfied if a trifle hard on the feet. Being a cadet today still involves use of the feet. It involves two more than ever before the use of the head. Small classes instituted by Thayer continue to intensify instruction at the academy. In the sciences, practical application of theory learned in formal instruction brings the curriculum to life. At the Naval and Air Force academies, the ultimate objective is an officer thoroughly educated, knowledgeable in many areas of human thought and endeavor. Inevitably, the sciences must figure heavily into the preparation of men for a military career. And from the early days, West Point has provided its students with a thorough grounding in the basic scientific disciplines. In fact, West Point was the first institution of learning in the United States to establish a systematic course of engineering. Men trained here were much in demand, both for teaching posts in other colleges and for civil engineering posts. This training was to give West Point graduates an important role beyond the purely military. The West at that time was raw, for the most part unexplored, unmapped. A few determined and adventurous pioneers were making their way into the far reaches of desert and mountain. But it was a struggle which only the hardiest could endure. Meanwhile, young Americans at West Point were receiving their introduction to physics, mathematics, civil engineering, geology, cartography, mineralogy. Were in fact receiving the instruction which would provide through them the brains and the skill for the opening of the West. When men went out with the mission of finding and surveying routes for future railroads, there were many West Pointers among them. Small groups of men, army surveying parties, laid out virtually all the routes for the great transcontinental railways. The importance of this reservoir of engineering know-how, provided almost entirely by the military academy at that time, would be difficult to estimate. It was this know-how which linked the oceans of our continent. When the tragedy of civil war broke over the land, West Pointers were among the leaders of both sides, Grant and Sherman, Lee, Stonewall Jackson and many others. The 20th century of course has brought vast changes in the profession of arms. The young officer of today faces not only a complex technology, but an overall scope of responsibility which is immensely wider than in the past. A cadet from Little Rock who graduated at the head of his class in 1903 finds that the scope of his service extends beyond the confines of the army, as his experience and advice are valued in the highest levels of government. And this cadet from Clark, Missouri, graduating in 1915, finds that his career takes him from Missouri to Paris, where he must work on an international level in both military and diplomatic capacities. And from Abilene, yet another member of the class of 1915, was to find out that for one who dedicates himself to serving his nation, the roles of educator, international military leader and statesman may well be included in the scope of his responsibilities. Thus to be a member of the class of 1962 at West Point, was to stand at a new threshold in military history, facing an unparalleled challenge. A challenge which the Corps of Cadets is to hear evaluated by their commencement speaker, the Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States. General Westmoreland, General Lemonser, Mr. Secretary, General Decker, General Taylor, members of the graduating class and their parents, gentlemen. I want to express my appreciation for the generous invitation to come to this graduating class. I'm sure that all of you who sit here today realize that you are part of a long tradition, stretching back to the earliest days of this country's history, and that where you sit sat once some of the most celebrated names in our nation's history. And also some who are not so well known, but who on a hundred different battlefields in many wars involving every generation of this country's history have given very clear evidence of their commitment to their country. So that I know that you feel a sense of pride in becoming part of that tradition. And as a citizen of the United States, as well as President, I want to express our high regard to all of you and appreciation for what you are doing and what you will do for our country in the days ahead. I know that many of you may feel and many of our citizens may feel that in these days of the nuclear age, when war may last in its final form, a day or two or three days before much of the world is burned up, that your service to your country will be only standing and waiting. Nothing of course could be further from the truth. I'm sure that many Americans believe that the days before World War II and the days of World War II were the golden age when the stars were falling on all the graduates of West Point, that that was the golden time of service and that you have moved into a period where military service while vital is not as challenging as it was then. The fact of the matter is that the period just ahead in the next decade will offer more opportunities for service to the graduates of this academy than ever before in the history of the United States because all around the world in countries which are heavily engaged in the maintenance of their freedom, graduates of this academy are heavily involved. Whether it's in Vietnam or in Laos or in Thailand, whether it's a military advisory group in Iran, whether it's a military attaché in some Latin American country during a difficult and challenging period, whether it's the commander of our troops in South Korea, the burdens that will be placed upon you when you fill those positions as you must inevitably will require more from you than ever before in our history. The graduates of West Point, the Naval Academy and the Air Academy in the next ten years will have the greatest opportunity for the defense of freedom than this graduates, this academy's graduates have ever had and I'm sure that the Joint Chiefs of Staff endorse that view knowing as they do and I do the heavy burdens that are required of this academy's graduates every day. General Tucker in Laos or General Hawkins in Vietnam and a dozen others who hold key and significant positions involving the security of the United States and the defense of freedom, you're going to follow in their footsteps and I must say that I think that you will be privileged in the years ahead to find yourselves so heavily involved in the great interests of this country and therefore I hope that you realize and I hope every American realize how much we depend upon you. Your strictly military responsibilities therefore will require a versatility and an adaptability never before required in either war or in peace. They may involve the command and control of modern nuclear weapons and modern delivery systems show complex that only a few scientists can understand their operation. So devastating that their inadvertent use would be of worldwide concern but so new that their employment and their effects have never been tested in combat conditions. On the other hand, your responsibilities may involve the command of more traditional forces but in less traditional roles. Men risking their lives not as combatants but as instructors or advisors or as symbols of our nation's commitment. The fact that the United States is not directly at war in these areas in no way diminishes the skill and the courage that will be required. The service to our country which is rendered or the pain of the casualties which are suffered. To cite one final example of the range of responsibilities that will fall upon you you may hold a position of command with our special forces. Forces which are too unconventional to be called conventional. Forces which are growing in number and importance and significance. For we now know that it is wholly misleading to call this the nuclear age. Or to say that our security rests only on the doctrine of massive retaliation. Korea has not been the only battleground since the end of the Second World War. Men have fought and died in Malaya, in Greece, in the Philippines, in Algeria and Cuba and Cyprus and almost continuously on the Indochinese peninsula. No nuclear weapons have been fired. No massive nuclear retaliation has been considered appropriate. This is another type of warfare new in its intensity, ancient in its origin, war by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins, war by ambush, instead of by combat, by infiltration, instead of aggression, seeking victory by eroding and exhausting the enemy, instead of engaging him. It is a form of warfare uniquely adapted to what has been strangely called wars of liberation. To undermine the efforts of new and poor countries to maintain the freedom that they have finally achieved, it prays on economic unrest and ethnic conflicts. It requires in those situations where we must counter it. And these are the kinds of challenges that will be before us in the next decade. If freedom is to be saved, a whole new kind of strategy, a wholly different kind of force, and therefore a new and wholly different kind of military training. But I have spoken thus far only of the military challenges which your education must prepare you for. The non-military problems which you will face will also be most demanding, diplomatic, political, and economic. In the years ahead, some of you will serve as advisors to foreign aid missions or even to foreign governments. Some will negotiate terms of a ceasefire with broad political as well as military ramifications. Others will hold delicate command posts which are international in character. Still others will advise on plans to abolish arms instead of using them to abolish others. Whatever your position, the scope of your decisions will not be confined to the traditional tenets of military competence and training. You will need to know and understand not only the foreign policy of the United States, but the foreign policy of all countries scattered around the world who 20 years ago were the most distant names to us. You will need to give orders in different tongues and read maps by different systems. You will be involved in economic judgment which most economists would hesitate to make. At what point, for example, does military aid become burdensome to a country and make its freedom endangered rather than helping to secure it? To what extent can the gold and dollar cost of our overseas deployments be offset by foreign procurement? Or at what stage can a new weapons system be considered sufficiently advanced to justify large dollar appropriations? In many countries, your posture and performance will provide the local population with the only evidence of what our country is really like. In other countries, your military mission, its advice and action will play a key role in determining whether those people will remain free. You will need to understand the importance of military power and also the limits of military power to decide what arms should be used to fight and when they should be used to prevent a fight to determine what represents our vital interests and what interests are only marginal. Above all, you will have a responsibility to deter war as well as to fight it. For the basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible of a final military solution. While we will long require the services and admire the dedication and commitment of the fighting men of this country, neither our strategy nor our psychology as a nation and certainly not our economy must become permanently dependent upon an ever-increasing military establishment, our forces therefore must fulfill a broader role as a complement to our diplomacy, as an arm of our diplomacy, as a deterrent to our adversaries and as a symbol to our allies of our determination to support them. That is why this academy has seen its curriculum grow and expand in dimension, in substance and in difficulty. That is why you cannot possibly have crowded into these four busy years all of the knowledge and all of the range of experience which you must bring to these subtle and delicate tasks which I have described. And that is why you will go to school year after year so you can serve this country to the best of your ability and your talent. To talk of such talent and effort raises in the minds, I'm sure of everyone, and the minds of all of our countrymen, why? Why should men, such as you, able to master the complex arts of science, mathematics, language, economy, and all the rest, devote their lives to a military career with all of its risks and hardships? Why should their families be expected to make the personal and financial sacrifices that a military career inevitably brings with it? When there is a visible enemy to fight in open combat, the answer is not so difficult. Many serve, all applaud, and the tide of patriotism runs high. But when there is a long, slow struggle with no immediate visible foe, your choice will seem hard indeed, but you have one satisfaction. However difficult those days may be. When you are asked by a President of the United States or by any other American what you are doing for your country, no man's answer will be clearer than your own. And that moral motivation, which brought you here in the first place, is part of your training here as well. West Point was not built to produce technical experts alone. It was built to produce men committed to the defense of their country. Leaders of men who understand the great stakes which are involved. Leaders who can be entrusted with a heavy responsibility which modern weapons and the fight for freedom entail. Leaders who can inspire in their men the same sense of obligation to duty which you bring to it. There is no single slogan that you can repeat to yourself in hard days or give to those who may be associated with you. In times past a simple phrase 54-40 or fight or to make the world safe for democracy all that was enough. But the times, the weapons and the issues are now more complicated than ever. 18 years ago today Ernie Pyle describing those tens of thousands of young men who crossed the ageless and indifference sea of the English Channel searched in vain for a word to describe what they were fighting for. And finally he concluded that they were at least fighting for each other. You and I leave here today to meet our separate responsibilities to protect our nation's vital interests by peaceful means if possible by resolute action if necessary and we go forth confident of support and success because we know that we are working and fighting for each other and for all those men and women all over the globe who are determined to be free. For the 601 members of the class of 1962 and especially for the 30 or so honor students who received personal congratulations from their commander in chief June 6th was a day not likely to be soon forgotten. The long gray line had come a long way since the graduation of the two cadets who made up the class of 18-2 that in June of 1962 these young men and their counterparts at each of the nation's other service academies have an appointment with history the time and place, the method and import of that meeting is not yet known but one thing is certain the degree of preparedness they will have to bring to their mission is greater than it has ever been the demands which will be made upon them will be extensive for upon their leadership and that of their peers in the 20th century world may depend the survival of freedom as we know and cherish it. The commander in chief's remarks at the West Point graduation clearly apply with equal force to each and all of the armed forces of our country this is true because today more than ever the dedicated cooperation of all is essential to the protection of liberty both for our nation and for the other nations of the earth which make up the free world these words for each of the services are true. You will need to understand the importance of military power and also the limits of military power to decide what arms should be used to fight and when they should be used to prevent a fight to determine what represents our vital interests and what interests are only marginal above all you will have a responsibility to deter war as well as to fight it for the basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible of a final military solution our forces therefore must fulfill a broader role as a compliment to our diplomacy as an arm of our diplomacy as a deterrent to our adversaries and as a symbol to our allies of our determination to support them. Surely the determination of Americans to support the efforts of men everywhere who aspire to be free cannot be less than clear to the watching world the burden of maintaining and helping others to maintain the military means of ensuring that freedom is a heavy one but it is a burden which is willingly born the price which Americans have always stood willing to pay for liberty is to be found in a letter addressed to the world at large and called their Declaration of Independence it is a commitment which still stands the words are our lives our fortunes and our sacred honor