 God, Father, sustainer, and ultimate destination of all, we call upon you to be with us as we honor those who sacrifice for their families and friends and world peace. Your hearts are full as we contemplate the magnitude of their gift for us. Help us as a nation experience comfort and spiritual joy, for we know that you take special care of those who live and die with greatness. There is no greater love than this that a man lay down his life for his friends. We are spurred to action in response to their gift to us in the silence of our hearts. We whisper to them, we know what you've done for us. We love you for it. We shall strive to live up to your sacred trust, O God, hear our lament for their souls. Guard their deeds with your eternal love and rest, amen. Ladies and gentlemen, please be seated. The dignity and the honor of this ceremony and the nation's grief and pride are all embodied for us today by the presence and the participation for which we are profoundly grateful of our Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States. My fellow Americans, Memorial Day is a day of ceremonies and speeches. Throughout America today we honor the dead of our wars. We recall their valor and their sacrifices. We remember they gave their lives so that others might live. We're also gathered here for a special event, the National Funeral for an Unknown Soldier who will today join the heroes of three other wars. When he spoke at a ceremony at Gettysburg in 1863, President Lincoln reminded us that through their deeds the dead had spoken more eloquently for themselves than any of the living ever could and that we're living could only honor them by rededicating ourselves to the cause for which they so willingly gave a last full measure of devotion. Well this is especially so today for in our minds and hearts is the memory of Vietnam and all that that conflict meant for those who sacrificed on the field of battle and for their loved ones who suffered here at home. Not long ago when a memorial was dedicated here in Washington to our Vietnam veterans, the events surrounding that dedication were a stirring reminder of America's resilience of how our nation could learn and grow and transcend the tragedies of the past. During the dedication ceremonies the rolls of those who died and are still missing were read for three days in a candlelight ceremony at the National Cathedral and the veterans of Vietnam who were never welcomed home with speeches and bands but who were never defeated in battle and were heroes as surely as any who have ever fought in a noble cause staged their own parade on Constitution Avenue. As America watched them, some in wheelchairs, all of them proud, there was a feeling that this nation, that as a nation we were coming together again and that we had at long last welcomed the boys home. A lot of healing went on said one combat veteran who helped organize support for the memorial and then there was this newspaper account that appeared after the ceremonies. I'd like to read it to you. Yesterday crowds returned to the memorial. Among them was Herbie Pettit, a machinist and former Marine from New Orleans. Last night he said, standing near the wall, I went out to dinner with some other ex-Marines. There was also a group of college students in the restaurant. We started talking to each other and before we left they stood up and cheered us. The whole week Pettit said, his eyes read, it was worth it, just for that. It has been worth it. We Americans have learned to listen to each other and to trust each other again. We've learned that government owes the people an explanation and needs their support for its actions at home and abroad. We have learned and I pray this time for good, the most valuable lesson of all, the preciousness of human freedom. It has been a lesson relearned not just by Americans but by all the people of the world. Yet while the experience of Vietnam has given us a stark lesson that ultimately must move the conscience of the world, we must remember that we cannot today as much as some might want to close this chapter in our history. For the war in Southeast Asia still haunts a small but brave group of Americans, the families of those still missing in the Vietnam conflict. They live day and night with uncertainty, with an emptiness with a void that we cannot fathom. Today, some sit among you. Their feelings are a mixture of pride and fear. They are proud of their sons or husbands, fathers or brothers, who bravely and nobly answer the call of their country. But some of them fear that this ceremony writes a final chapter, leaving those they love forgotten. Today, then, one way to honor those who served or may still be serving in Vietnam is to gather here and rededicate ourselves to securing the answers for the families of those missing in action. I ask the members of Congress, the leaders of veterans groups, and the citizens of an entire nation present or listening to give these families your help and your support, for they still sacrifice and suffer. Vietnam is not over for them. They cannot rest until they know the fate of those they loved and watched march off to serve their country. Our dedication to their cause must be strengthened with these events today. We write no last chapters. We close no books. We put away no final memories. An end to America's involvement in Vietnam cannot come before we have achieved the fullest possible accounting of those missing in action. This can only happen when their families know with certainty that this nation discharged her duty to those who served nobly and well. Today, a united people call upon Hanoi with one voice, heal the soreest wound of this conflict, return our sons to America, and the grief of those who are innocent and undeserving of any retribution. The unknown soldier who has returned to us today and whom we later rest is symbolic of all our missing sons, and we will present him with the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration that we can bestow. Without him we may well wonder, as others have, as a child. Did he play on some street in a great American city, or did he work beside his father on a farm out in America's heartland? Did he marry? Did he have children? Did he look expectantly to return to a bride? We'll never know the answers to these questions about his life. We do know, though, why he died. He saw the horrors of war, but bravely faced them. Certain his own cause and his country's cause was a noble one, that he was fighting for human dignity, for free men everywhere. Today, we pause to embrace him and all who served us so well in a war whose end offered no parades, no flags, and so little thanks. We can be worthy of the values and ideals for which our sons sacrificed, worthy of their courage in the face of a fear that few of us will ever experience by honoring their commitment and devotion to duty and country. Many veterans of Vietnam still serve in the armed forces, work in our offices on our farms and in our factories. Most have kept their experiences private, but most have been strengthened by their call to duty. A grateful nation opens her heart today in gratitude for their sacrifice, for their courage, and for their noble service. Let us, if we must, debate the lessons learned at some other time. Today, we simply say with pride, thank you, dear son, may God cradle you in his loving arms. We present to you our nation's highest award, the Congressional Medal of Honor, for service above and beyond the call of duty, in action with the enemy during the Vietnam era. O Thou that dwell us in the convert of the Most High, and abidus in the shadow of the Almighty, I will say of the Lord who is my refuge in my fortress, my God in whom I trust, that he will deliver thee from the snare of the fowler and from the noise and pestilence. He will cover thee with his pinions and under his wings shall Thou take refuge. His truth is a shield and a buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flyeth by day, of the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor of the destruction that wasted that noonday. A thousand may fall at thy side and ten thousand at thy right hand. It shall not come nigh thee, only with thine eyes shall Thou behold and see the recompense of the wicked. For Thou hast made the Lord who is my refuge, even the Most High thy habitation. There shall no evil before thee, neither shall any play come nigh unto thy tent, for he will give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear upon thee their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against the stone. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the asp. The young lion and the serpent shalt thou trample under feet. Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him. I will set him on high because he hath known my name. He shall call upon me and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and bring him to honor. With long life will I satisfy him and make him behold my salvation.