From the shores of foreign lands to the sands of the middle east, and even across vast stretches of oceans and the skies above them, men and women of the the United States Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Air Force have sacrificed for freedom. Some have paid the ultimate price.

They have galvanized their status as heroes in toil and blood at places like Gettysburg, Normandy, Iwo Jima, Belleau Wood, and a host of others. Some lie at rest in Arlington National Cemetery and other military cemeteries throughout America; others do not.

This Memorial Day, we recall the words of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, taken from his Sylvanus Thayer Award acceptance address he gave at West Point on May 12, 1962. His speech not only captures the virtues American soldiers have exhibited throughout history, but honors their sacrifices:

“He needs no eulogy from me or from any other man. He has written his own history and written it in red on his enemy's breast. But when I think of his patience under adversity, of his courage under fire, and of his modesty in victory, I am filled with an emotion of admiration I cannot put into words. He belongs to history as furnishing one of the greatest examples of successful patriotism. He belongs to posterity as the instructor of future generations in the principles of liberty and freedom. He belongs to the present, to us, by his virtues and by his achievements. In 20 campaigns, on a hundred battlefields, around a thousand campfires, I have witnessed that enduring fortitude, that patriotic self-abnegation, and that invincible determination which have carved his statue in the hearts of his people. From one end of the world to the other he has drained deep the chalice of courage.”

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