Thank you for that welcome, and thank you President and Mrs. Bush for this invitation to speak at Texas A&M, a proud university with time honored traditions. I've only been here for a few hours, but spending that time with students here, I understand why you chose this place for your library.
You are all lucky to have a national treasure here in this library. I'm not talking about the memorabilia and records - I'm talking about President and Mrs. Bush.
Once they led a nation - today they inspire a nation.
The Navy's youngest pilot became the nation's Commander-in-Chief. And now, he comforts the wounded from Hurricanes and Tsunami.
His 16 year old dance partner became the mother of 6 - including a President and a Governor - the nation's first lady, and the love of their 62 married years.
Inspired by them both, their grandson, George P. Bush, has joined the Navy Reserve.
Their accomplishments changed global politics. Their character changed our hearts.
Let me also add a word of thanks to the Texas A&M community for allowing the Federal government to "borrow" Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
Mr. President, I am told that you have objected to calling your generation the greatest generation. You prefer to add others to the list, including the brave men and women who fought to protect us in Desert Storm, and those who are in harms way today.
I wholly agree with your characterization of our armed forces as the bravest and most patriotic in the world. But I still line up with Tom Brokaw on this. Not due to any deficiency in bravery. But because of what your entire generation of American's sacrificed, and because of what you accomplished.
Frankly, what your generation achieved, for America, and for the world, was so astounding that historians may have a difficult time convincing future students that they are not grossly exaggerating.
Mid century, a menacing madman had captured the wealth and land of all continental Europe. His rantings of genocide had been dismissed as hyperbole, but they were appallingly real. Allied with Japan, Hitler was poised to conquer one last European island and her most famous former colony - us. You stopped them both - your blood washing the beaches of the Atlantic and the Pacific.
And then, another threat, just as horrific. The Soviet Empire hung an Iron Curtain, and spread its leaden weight around the world. The peril of nuclear holocaust was reminiscent of the holocaust that the world had just seen in Europe. This time, the holocaust threatened the entire human race. And again, your generation won.
And the victor was truly an entire generation, not just those, like yourself, who served in the armed forces. In the 40's, you rationed and saved. Your mothers and daughters enlisted to work in factories, just as you did Mrs. Bush. And in the 60's and 70's and 80's, you relentlessly pursued learning and innovation to lead the world in space, in technology, in productivity - you out-competed the Soviets. You drove them to the economic bankruptcy that matched their moral bankruptcy.
Today, we face a new generation of challenges, globally and here at home. We will do as American have always done: we will rise to the occasion.
We have all that we need. We have technology, technology that would have been beyond the imagination of our grandparents. We have national wealth. And most important, we have the heart and passion of the American people - always the greatest source of our strength as a nation.
We need leadership. We are fortunate today to have a President who loves America, who acts solely out of a desire to protect her and to promote liberty around the world. We have a President who leads.
But I think most Americans look at Washington and are appalled at the divisiveness, the bitterness, the smallness, the disunity. Senator Arth
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