They give you a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, an appetite for adventure over love of ease. They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success not to substitute words for action 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 to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep to reach into the future, yet never neglect the past to be serious, yet never take yourself too seriously to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength. They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid. They mold you for your future roles as the custodians of the nation's defense. 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.īut these are some of the things they do. The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Unhappily, I possess neither that eloquence of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell you all that they mean. 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. "Duty," "Honor," "Country"-those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. That I should be integrated in this way with so noble an ideal arouses a sense of pride and yet of humility which will be with me always. For all eyes and for all time, it is an expression of the ethics of the American soldier. But this award is not intended primarily to honor a personality, but to symbolize a great moral code-the code of conduct and chivalry of those who guard this beloved land of culture and ancient descent. It fills me with an emotion I cannot express. No human being could fail to be deeply moved by such a tribute as this, coming from a profession I have served so long and a people I have loved so well. 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?" General Westmoreland, General Groves, distinguished guests, and gentlemen of the Corps. 6384 Duty, Honor, Country 1962 Douglas MacArthur
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