 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the United States Naval War College graduation ceremony. I am Captain Patrick Keys, the dean of students, and will be serving as the emcee for today's ceremony. You're welcome to take photographs at any time throughout the ceremony. We have official photographers taking pictures today, and you will find these photos posted on our Flickr site, found in the back of the program for you to download. At this time as a courtesy, please put your cell phones on silent or vibrate. Please remain seated for the student and faculty processions. Please rise and remain standing for the arrival of the official party, national anthem, and invocation. The national anthem will be sung by Petty Officer Kristiana Villalva from the Navy Band Northeast. Commander David M. Todd, chaplain of the Naval Leadership and Ethics Center, will deliver the invocation. Let us pray. Almighty God, we pray your blessing upon these graduates of the College of Naval Command and Staff and the College of Naval Warfare we gather to honor today. Your word reminds us to whom much is entrusted, much is required. As this time of study, reflection, critique, and refinement comes to a close, we give you thanks for sustaining them through every test, exercise, and paper, and the perseverance that enabled them to run the course with endurance. As they return to the fleet, grant them wisdom in applying the knowledge and skills they have mastered through this course of instruction, instilling them a passion to demonstrate creativity and initiative in the face of complex challenges ahead, forging through these uncertain times with unwavering conviction. In the midst of every confusion, complacent compromise, and complexity that characterizes the battle space of our times, give them eyes to see, hearts and minds to grasp, and wills to demonstrate fidelity to the moral character demanded by our nation's highest aspirations. Bless also the faculty and staff that have instructed, challenged, and demanded more of these students that they might be fully equipped and ready for the task ahead and for the family and friends who have encouraged and supported them. We pray you would use this ceremony to stir in each of us present a renewed desire to engage the challenges that lie ahead and affirm commitment to fulfill our role in serving the cause of security, prosperity, and peace for all. Looking forward to the day when your truth, justice, and righteousness shall reign forever, amen. You may be seated. It gives me great pleasure to introduce some members of our official party. Radimal Michael White, Dean, College of Maritime Operational Warfare. Radimal Margaret Klein, Dean, Leadership and Ethics. Dr. Tim Garrell, Deputy Dean, College of Distance Education. Professor Tom Kalora, Dean, Center for Naval Warfare Studies. Professor Robert Winig, Deputy Dean, International Programs and Maritime Security Cooperation. Dr. Phil Han, Dean of Academics. Dr. Louis Duncan, Provost, United States War College. Dr. Robert Hutchinson, Strategy and Policy Department. And Radimal Jeffrey Harley, 56th President of the United States Naval War College. Several years ago, we began a tradition at the US Naval War College of allowing the graduating student body to nominate their guest speaker from amongst all the talented professionals at the college. I'd like to ask graduating student, Commander Andres Helchinger, to introduce your faculty guest speaker. Hans, come on up. Admiral Hartley, distinguished guests, family, friends, faculty, fellow graduates, good afternoon. It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you our next speaker, Professor Robert Hutchinson. For those of you who don't know Professor Hutchinson, he's a proud fight and blue hen of the University of Delaware where he received a Bachelor of Arts in European History. He then earned his doctorate in modern European history from the University of Maryland with a focus on European political and intellectual history, intelligence studies, Holocaust and genocide studies. His first book, What I'm Sure Will Soon Be the Definitive Work on the Modern German Intelligence Apparatus, German Foreign Intelligence from Hitler's War to the Cold War, will examine the intersection of information, ideology and statecraft in Nazi Germany and post-war West Germany and the United States. He currently serves as your post doctoral fellow in the strategy and policy department here at your Naval War College. All of this in less time than it took me to earn just one Master of Arts in Defense and Strategic Studies. We as a class came together to vote Rob as our guest speaker today amongst all the amazing faculty here at the Naval War College. After we found out that distinguished graduates like Admiral Fox Fallon, General Stan McChrystal and Sean Spicer only come for the big graduations in June. For those of you who know Rob and had the privilege of sitting in seminar with him, know he's an indefatigable fountain of knowledge with the unique capability of being able to occupy the headspace of Kaiser Wilhelm and detail the finer points of President Johnson's foreign policy rationale. Rob truly manifests what it means to be a great professor. He and his military professor counterpart, Captain Mike Marston, work seamlessly and artfully together to guide our seminar discussions through complex and contentious course material. He definitely encouraged cooperative argumentative dialogue between a diverse group of US and international officers and at times lively group and stimulate critical thinking. With a back and forth of asking and answering questions with plenty of historical background and certainly no political science, he was able to draw out ideas and cultivate an environment of self-discovery. He probably allowed me the leeway to derail maybe a few too many discussions with Offbeat but very apt popular references but he and Mike were always able to guide the group back to a learning objective. Those of us that have the pleasure of working with Rob will surely remember him. He's made an indelible mark on our graduate studies and are all better off for having learned from him. Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Rob Hutchinson. Thank you, Andy, for that introduction. And I have to say I'm surprised to be standing in front of you, I would be remiss if I didn't say that any impact I would have made without my wonderful teaching partner, Mike Marston. To the graduates and your families and friends in attendance, I am honored to stand before you today and share the joy of your accomplishments. I want to start by saying that it has been a pleasure to work with you, even those of you who I haven't had a privilege to work with directly. It's been wonderful watching you engage with big ideas, complicated texts and naughty problems. It's been a true privilege of mine no matter what comes next for all of you. I am excited for you and wish you the best in all your future endeavors. That's not the end of the speech. There is still one last lecture left between you and the door. And so let's get underway. For the pain, however brief I'm about to inflict upon you, thanks are owed to Andy and seminars 25 and 26, I imagine. My standing here as speaker is rather ironic in that I did not appear before you as a lecturer this past term or some of you for the senior graduates at all. And in my seminars, I try to make it a point to speak as little as possible of whether or not my students believe me when I say this, it is in fact true. As for the rest of you, I imagine that you've consented to me as a speaker because I have not yet depleted your reservoir of goodwill by talking about things you may not be interested in for longer than you'd prefer. All I have to say to that is there's no time like the present, so let's get underway. And for all my colleagues from other departments and attendants, I do beg your forgiveness in that my remarks here are framed very much in S&P terms, not because I'm closed-minded or anything like that. It's just because I haven't been here long enough to know exactly what happens outside of my home department. So what wisdom could I, a new fellow, possibly have to bestow upon you? Have you in fact made a strategic blunder in selecting me, a relatively unknown quantity as your speaker? In S&P terms, let's conduct one last net assessment for the road. And because times of the essence will skip the extensive list of my strengths and go straight to the weaknesses. As I said before, I started in August, so you've all been here considerably longer than me, even though you're leaving. You're also, most of you are older and wiser than I am, and I imagine you're all considerably richer as well, if you care about that sort of thing. I'm also a historian of modern Europe, as Andy mentioned, and so you have me at a disadvantage in that for my entire career, I fantasized about a captive audience of this size, and now that I have one, I'm not allowed to talk about my insights on modern European history or Nazi Germany. Instead, I have to offer some sort of profound life lessons to mark this wonderful occasion. I would say this does not bode well for me or for you, but nevertheless, as we should say, a full steam ahead. When you look at the photograph of your commencement or the diploma that you receive, and you think of coming onto the stage and shaking our hands and listening to Admiral Harley's remarks, you'll think of many important things. You'll remember the sense of justified pride you feel in your accomplishments. You'll remember the friends you made in your courses and the enemies as well. You'll remember the time that you spent in Newport, the time you were able to spend with your families, or if you were located far away the time you weren't able to spend with them. You'll remember the hard work that you've done. You'll remember who's in the audience today and you'll remember who you wish could have been here to share your achievements with you. And we, the faculty, pray that you will remember some of what you have learned. What you will not remember is me or this speech. It is a scientific fact when it comes to commencement speakers that no one remembers what we have to say, and I've got no shot because I'm not famous. So my strategy then is to play around the margins, selecting a message and framing it around an issue that is important to you and draws directly on your course experiences. After a careful and thorough analysis of the latest student evaluations, I have identified such a topic. So in the time we have left together, I wanna talk to you about the riveting and inspirational subject of course readings and your frequent criticism that there's not enough time to do them all. As a faculty member, I hate this complaint. I hate when you say this, but as a historian and a citizen, I could not agree with your assessment more. There's simply too much reading to do. Now before the giant hook comes out and yanks me off the stage, I wanna assure you that I'm neither criticizing the curriculum nor mocking your heartfelt feedback. Instead, I want us to work through some of the assumptions behind this frequent criticism and how they relate to your future as officers and citizens. And I promise it's not as much of a stretch as you might think. I get the sense that the origins of the too much reading complaint stem not from any character failures on your part, but rather from the opposite. You're dismayed that between your personal lives, your familial obligations, other coursework and professional duties, there's simply not enough time in the day for you to read everything you want to read with as much care and attention as you wish were possible. Although you feel that you understand the material, you also feel that if you only had more time, you would understand it better. You feel that there are good answers to be had with the complicated questions we ask of you in class and that if only you had more time, you would knock every assignment, every topic, every exam out of the park and into the stratosphere. I sympathize as a historian, I really do. I have devoted and planned to devote the rest of my life to studying a very small slice of a very small region in the past and there are tens of thousands of books I will never read because I don't have the time. There are millions of pages of documents I will never have a chance to consult. There are several ideas I have that may be original but I'll never get a chance to develop them. It is simply a feature of modern existence that we are drowning in data and while this is not why we ask you to read so much here, it's not exactly an unfortunate byproduct because the issue of central importance isn't how much you read but what you read and how you read it. In spite of the challenges you face in your personal lives during your year in Newport, which might pale in comparison to the problems of American strategic policy, there were no doubt enormous to you as you experienced them. In spite of these problems that you've all overcome to be here, you succeeded in your courses or you wouldn't be sitting here today and that's important to remember. So what have you accomplished? I have a quote from Admiral Stansfield Turner on the curriculum and the development of the Naval War College that I think is fitting to bookend the occasion before you leave. The objective of the Naval War College, Turner said, is to enhance the capability of officers to make sound decisions. This means developing your intellect, encouraging you to reason, to innovate and to expand your capacity to solve complex military problems. Intellectual development and academic excellence were crucial in Admiral Turner's view to achieving this goal. What we ask you to take forward with you as you leave here then, apart from the ability to make an appropriate Klausowitz remark for any occasion, is a way of thinking, a methodology of problem solving that stands apart from any content you may have learned along the way. And we ask that you use these tools to grow intellectually and to continue to improve. Lifelong learning, after all, is not a distraction from the real work you have to do or the life you are living, but rather is essential to them both. Consider the domain of war, which, since this is a war college graduation, I would be remiss if I did not consider it. Consider the domain of war, which is arguably the most complicated of human endeavors, a domain where, as you are no doubt sick and tired of hearing, Klausowitz lamented that even the most simple thing is difficult. And where the constant difficulties posed by chance and the rigors of operations result in unceasing frictions, with your imperfect knowledge of your opponent conjuring an impenetrable fog. That was 200 years ago. Today, this fog, while perhaps not as thick, is accompanied by a blaring cacophony of chatter, drawn from social media, drone feeds, digital surveillance, and other such technologically driven resources of modern information gathering that Klausowitz never dreamed of, or frankly cared to dream of. Although in Klausowitz's time, this environment of fog and friction posed a unique danger to officers and leaders paralyzed by uncertainty. In the present, the vast quantity of information you will have at your fingertips, now and in the future, poses a risk of self-assessment from the other direction, in the sense that it is all too easy to forget that there are many things you do not know. This oversaturation tempts overconfidence and the cherry picking of data to fit your preferred outcome or preconception of the world. It is your responsibility as officers to counteract these tendencies through the use of your intellect, to examine complicated problems from multiple angles and perspectives and offer the best advice that you can. Knowing that in the real world, there are seldom any easy answers and that sometimes even an unsatisfying status quo is itself the best solution or at any rate the least bad option on the table. So what advice do I have for you then? Well, I ask you to remember that the space you inhabit professionally and the broader national security environment are in a constant state of flux and that no matter your rank and position, you'll likely have to reinvent yourself throughout your careers to confront challenges both foreseen and unforeseen. It pains me to say this, but historians are notoriously terrible at predicting the future, so I'm not going to try to do that. What I can do, however, is offer a few glib assertions about the past that support the point I'm trying to make. From 1815 to the mid 1930s, your predecessors, among other things, they had many duties diligently planned and prepared for the eventuality of the naval war with Great Britain and the land-based invasion of Canada that would follow. In a few short years of cooperation by necessity, those decades of careful preparation, concern, and analysis were swept away. From the perspective of the late 19th century Anglo-American competition for mastery of the seas, let alone the smoldering ashes of the original White House in 1814, who would have foreseen that? Well, lots of changes are possible across such a broad space of time. Why am I bothering you with this? This is stupid, it's over 100 years. So let's shrink the aperture. How many of those same American naval officers from the 1930s would have predicted that within their lifetimes, credible arguments could be made that the fate of the world and the American way of life depended on a system of government adopted by a former French colony in Southeast Asia. Still too long because we're talking about decades. Well, how many of your forebears in the spring of 1989 would have envisioned that less than two years later they would be engaged in a war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq with the political support of the Soviet Union no less, itself crumbling from the inside out and not long for this world? You have already seen other such shifts in your lifetimes that I don't need to mention as we are now, even now returned to an era of great power competition following decades of what has been a focus on non-state actors in the unipolar moment. No matter how much you prepare, no matter how much you plan, the national security challenges of today are not necessarily the national security challenges of tomorrow and that is a prediction I am actually quite comfortable making. Know that this is true. You will face the unexpected and the unfamiliar and you will have to adapt as best you can. So when these new challenges arise, I urge you to embrace them with the same steadfastness, intellectual curiosity and engagement that you have already proven yourselves capable of here and you will succeed. When you need to become an expert on a new subject overnight, whether it's a weapon system, a strategy, a proposal, an assignment or just the everyday decisions of life who to vote for were to send your child to school, how best to care for an alien family member. I would implore you to remember that there is an infinite amount of information at your fingertips and you will never have as much time as you wish to solve the problems that need solving and that is perfectly fine. So long as when presented with this informational overload, you do not in the words of an ageless knight from Indiana Jones and the last crusade choose poorly the information that you consume. When confronting tomorrow's challenges, foreign or domestic I urge you to be flexible, to be resilient, read widely, seek out compelling arguments, especially if they sit uncomfortably alongside your ingrained beliefs and preconceptions. And in difficult periods, when time is lacking and the solutions in front of you unsatisfactory always remain guarded against the false comforts of cynicism and fatalism. Most importantly, in consideration of the overwhelming amount of information pertinent to the many roles you have in your lives, do as much of the reading as you can and make every effort to choose wisely as you have already shown that you can do. And with that, I take great pleasure and once again congratulate the newest graduates of the U.S. Naval War College. Thank you, it's my honor. Thank you for your comments, Dr. Hutchinson. For each graduating class, one student is selected for recognition as the president's honor graduate. Recipients of this award are chosen based on their outstanding achievement across a spectrum of disciplines including academic performance, participation in Naval War College activities, participation in civic and community activities, and promotion of armed and government services in the public interest. For the College of Naval Command and Staff, the honor graduate for the March 2019 graduating class is Major John Brasher, United States Army. Would you please come up to the stage to receive your award. Major Brasher earned an academic average of 93.18, served as the XO for a TSDM final exercise and JMO capstone event, served as a PTO volunteer for Pell Elementary and conduct a leadership professional development event as ROTC unit at the University of New Mexico. Along with the certificate he's receiving an engraved weaves and path accomplished from Naval War College Foundation President Rear Admiral Glenn on Whistler, United States Navy retired former chairman of the Board of Trustees. Admiral Whistler, please come to the stage. A master of arts degree in national security and strategic studies or defense and strategic studies as appropriate will now be conferred to the graduates. Will the graduates please rise and remain in place. Admiral Harley, please approach the podium. Admiral, I have the honor to present the March graduates of the United States Naval War College, candidates for the masters of arts in national security and strategic studies and defense and strategic studies. They have been thoroughly examined and approved by the faculty. By the power vested in me by the almighty God, the secretary of the Navy, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I hereby confer upon you all appropriate degrees and authorities they're with. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me with your applause in recognizing our graduates. Thank you, sir. Graduates, please be seated. Beyond the requirements for graduation, certain individuals have distinguished themselves through academic excellence. For those in the top 5%, they're receiving a diploma with highest distinction. Those in the next 15% will receive a diploma with distinction. Graduates will now receive their diplomas. Graduates, please proceed to the stage as your name is read. Yes, sir, welcome to come forward to take photographs. Please try to hold your applause until all names have been read. Grad Moharly, Dr. Hutchinson, Dr. Duncan, and Dean Hahn, please rise. Presenting the graduating members of the College of Naval Warfare and their next duty assignment. Commander Raphael R. Casalejo, United States Navy, PMW760, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, San Diego, California. Lieutenant Commander Charles T. Cooper, United States Navy, Halza Alpha Fellow, United States Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island. Commander John R. Dye, United States Navy, U.S. Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island. Commander Andre L. Fields, Supply Corps, United States Navy, Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C. Captain Mark S. Niesbel Dueming, United States Navy, Commanding Officer, Naval Base, San Diego, California. Presenting the graduating members of the College of Naval Command and Staff and their next duty assignment. Lieutenant Anastasia Skye Abed, United States Navy, Surface Warfare Officer School, Newport, Rhode Island. Lieutenant Commander William M. Adams, United States Navy, VFA 154, Naval Air Station, Lamor, California. Lieutenant Commander Brian M. Allen, United States Navy, Officer Training Command, Newport, Rhode Island. Lieutenant Commander Jeremiah Kent Anderson, United States Navy, with high distinction, Officer Training Command, Newport, Rhode Island. Lieutenant Commander Sergio Augusto Armus, United States Navy, Electronic Attack Squadron 129, Naval Air Station, Whidbey Island, Washington. Lieutenant Commander Dominic R. Bailey, United States Navy, United States Central Command, McDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida. Lieutenant Commander Brent L. Banks, United States Navy, Special Operations Command Pacific, Honolulu, Hawaii. Commander Victor J. Boza, U.S. Navy, USS Shoup, DDG-86, San Diego, California. Major John T. Brasher, United States Army, with high distinction, 25th Infantry Division, Wahiwa, Hawaii. Lieutenant Commander Luke A. Brown, United States Navy, United States Strategic Command, Omaha, Nebraska. Lieutenant Commander Greg C. Davis, United States Navy, VAQ-135, Naval Air Station, Whidbey, Washington. Lieutenant Commander Richard R. Delk, U.S. Navy, VAQ-136, Naval Air Station, Whidbey Island, Washington. Commander Daniel H. Doyle, United States Navy, Tactical Support Wing, Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base, Fort Worth, Texas. Lieutenant Commander Brian Earhart, U.S. Navy, Special Operations Command Europe, Stuttgart, Fahingen, Germany. Lieutenant Andrew Duncan Phobes, United States Navy, with high distinction, Office of Naval Intelligence, Chief of Naval Operations Intelligence Plot, Arlington, Virginia. Major Teresa Faye Fauda, United States Army, Fourth Infantry Division, Colorado Springs, Colorado. Lieutenant Kevin First, U.S. Navy, Carrier Strike Group 12, Norfolk, Virginia. Lieutenant Daniel J. Gash, United States Navy, with distinction, Naval Submarine School, Groton, Connecticut. Lieutenant Commander Lisa T. Green, U.S. Navy, Information Warfare Training Command, Monterey, California. Commander Andreas R. Helchinger, U.S. Navy, Joint Forces Staff College, Norfolk, Virginia. Lieutenant Commander Randall E. Hendricks III, U.S. Navy, United States Naval Ceremonial Guard, Washington, D.C. Lieutenant Matthew N. Height, United States Navy, Information Warfare Training Command, Monterey, California. Major Stephen Michael Houdak, Jr., United States Army, 782nd Military Intelligence Brigade, Fort Gordon, Georgia. Lieutenant Commander Logan V. Karsner, United States Navy, Surface Warfare Officer School, Newport, Rhode Island. Major Julie M. Kendrick, United States Army, U.S. Army Logistics Center of Excellence, Fort Lee, Virginia. Lieutenant Commander Trier B. Kissel, United States Navy, U.S. Naval Forces, Europe, Africa, U.S. Sixth Fleet, Naples, Italy. Lieutenant Commander Matthew B. Coleman, U.S. Navy, With Distinction, Information Warfare Training Command, Monterey, California. Lieutenant Commander Phillip R. Kreitz, United States Navy, Helicopter Maritime Strike, Weapons School, Atlantic, Jacksonville, Florida. Lieutenant Commander Brandon Dane Lombaso, U.S. Navy, Cryptologic Warfare Group 67, Fort Meade, Maryland. Lieutenant Commander Colleen Mergett, Minahan, U.S. Navy, With Distinction, U.S. Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island. Lieutenant Commander John O'Donnell, Supply Corps, U.S. Navy, USS Harry S. Truman, CVN 75, Norfolk, Virginia. Captain Alexander Park, United States Army, U.S. Army Garrison Camp Humphrey, South Korea. Lieutenant Michael T. Plummer, U.S. Navy, With Distinction, Naval Submarine School, Groton, Connecticut. Lieutenant Commander Matthew Price, U.S. Navy, VAW 121, Norfolk, Virginia. Lieutenant Commander Matthew J. Quintero, U.S. Navy, U.S. Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island. Major Daniel S. Richard, U.S. Army, U.S. Army Central Command, Shaw Air Force Base, Sumter, South Carolina. Lieutenant Commander Taylor Reeves, U.S. Navy, VFA 154, Naval Air Station, Lamar, California. Lieutenant Commander Catherine Shepherd, U.S. Navy, HSM 78, Naval Air Station, North Island, California. Lieutenant Aaron Michael Smith, U.S. Navy, With Distinction, Naval Submarine School, Groton, Connecticut. Lieutenant Jerd H. Smith, U.S. Navy, Naval Submarine School, Groton, Connecticut. Major Benjamin E. Sweeney, U.S. Army, Second Infantry Division, Camp Humphrey, South Carolina. Lieutenant Commander Tiana Tifua, U.S. Navy, Opnav, Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia. Lieutenant Commander Bradley Roy Thompson, U.S. Navy, With Distinction, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Arlington, Virginia. Lieutenant Commander Samuel B. Wheeler, U.S. Navy, With Distinction, United States Africa Command, Stuttgart, Germany. Lieutenant Commander James John Whiteman, United States Navy, Naval Surface Squadron 5, Bahrain. Last but not least, Lieutenant Commander Daniel Morgan Wilfeng, U.S. Navy, Joint Planning Support Element, Norfolk, Virginia. Ladies and gentlemen, please join us in a round of applause for our graduates. Rebel Harley will now issue the charge to the graduates. Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, Admiral Whistler, family and friends, welcome and thank you for attending to our graduates of the class of 2019. Today you join the long line of Naval War College graduates that extends back over 134 years, a history you now share with those who came before. Your dedicated efforts and hard work have helped to define your skills and growth as members of your respective professions. I also wanna point out that everything we as a staff and faculty were able to do for you this past year was in one way or another, due in part to the outstanding support of the Naval War College Foundation. The contributions of the foundation were able to do far more than just another college. As each of you returned to your positions of great responsibility in government, at headquarters staffs, leading forces in combat, and even to the last full measure of devotion, your charge is to think critically, to dare greatly and to fully utilize your heightened understanding of strategy and the elements of national power. I charge you to remember the camaraderie and the experiences that you have shared during your time at this great institution of learning and to continue to be the best warfighter you can be and to be ready for the terror of war if it comes. I charge you to realize your strength through being ready emotionally, spiritually and physically to be the decisive leader you must be, to replace fear with trust, to show humility, to have integrity, to be respectful and as the great philosopher Cinderella said, to have courage and be kind. I charge you then to have courage and to harness it to know that your faith in God or in your great nation is not misplaced that your sacrifices keep this nation free. But above all, I charge you to distill the essence of both your courage and your intellect into your profession, into all that you do. General Patton said, courage is fear holding on a minute longer. Well, the critical thinking skills you have learned here will give you the extra minute you need to rise up to these challenges and any fears that you might face. So this charge is really yours to go forward now and to do what needs to be done, to be the individuals who will determine the strategy and contribute to policy at the highest levels, to carry the day with an articulate and timely idea. This is your duty, this is your responsibility and this is your time. And finally, I direct your attention to the great Wakandan philosopher IO from Black Panther fame and ask you to remember, you are more than your service. You are so much more than your service. We will continue to serve, but from this day forth, our eyes will be open, we'll serve, but we also think and act and what we think best. This is the skill set given to you by this great college. On behalf of the Naval War College faculty and staff, I wish God speed to you all. God bless our great nation, God bless our great college, God bless our gifted faculty and God bless us, everyone. Please rise for the benediction. Let us pray. Eternal God, as you have graced us with your presence, so send us out with your approbation, presence and peace. In trust of these leaders, the spirit of a scholar warrior, ever seeking a deeper understanding of the forces at play in the field of battle, a greater appreciation of the operational arena and a more precise way forward in the hour of complexity and crisis. Enable them to maintain steadfastness of purpose, fidelity to their nation and dedication to the high principles of honor, courage and commitments in defense of justice, freedom and liberty for all. Kindle a new spirit of self-sacrificial service that will fuel the development of those they lead and spur them on to excellence. Grant that we may all remain resolute and faithful in our particular places of responsibility, demonstrating by our every word, thought indeed the honor, courage and commitment to which we have been called. Amen. Please remain standing for the departure of the official party. This concludes our graduation ceremony. Thank you for joining us this afternoon.