Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, right, addresses the audience while former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld looks on during Rumsfeld's portrait unveiling ceremony at the Pentagon, June 25, 2010.
Rumsfeld Says America is Servicemembers’ Gift to Future"
Excerpt:
America exists and prospers because members of the U.S. armed forces step forward and protect it, former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said here today. "In a very real sense,” he said, “America is their gift to the future."
“This country – which has treated me so well – exists and prospers because the members of the United States armed forces have volunteered to step forward and protect it,” Rumsfeld said.
Rumsfeld served as the 13th defense secretary from 1975 to 1977 and as the 21st secretary from 2001 to 2006. He is both the youngest and oldest man to serve as defense secretary.
Both of his official portraits will hang in the Pentagon. The newest, painted by Steven Polson and unveiled today, shows Rumsfeld at his stand-up desk with a picture of first-responders and soldiers unfurling the flag over the still-burning Pentagon on Sept. 12, 2001.
*snip*
The former defense secretary spoke about his favorite photo that brightly illustrates what freedom can accomplish:
it is a satellite photo of the Korean peninsula taken at night. The free South Korea is bathed in light. In the communist North, a small glimmer of light is seen around the capital city of Pyongyang – otherwise the country is dark.
“They are exactly the same people north and south, exactly the same resources north and south, but those millions of Koreans who labor in the north work not for their families, but for a regime that enslaves them,” Rumsfeld said.
The United States is free and the people of America are free to make their own choices, he pointed out.
“We can choose to engage the world and strengthen alliances with our friends and our trading relations, deter potential foes and to take the fight to them when necessary,” Rumsfeld said. “Or we can retreat and make the tragic mistake of modeling our country after failing systems.
If we choose the latter, let there be no doubt, we are certain to fail the generations that follow.”
Rumsfeld said it was important to him and his wife, Joyce, that his second official portrait includes the photo of the Pentagon workers unfurling the American flag.
Really, really miss ya, Rummy, and all the grownups!! God bless you.