General Wesley Clark - Commencement Address

Wagner College | New York City

May 19, 2006

Transcript of remarks

It's great to be here on Staten Island, in this beautiful setting…and to share in the pride and the excitement that you graduating seniors and families feel.

Congratulations to you. You should be proud! In a few moments – and I don't want to delay it much - you'11 be walking across the stage here to receive your degrees…you'll flip that tassel to the other side…and nothing will ever be the same again…You've done it!

You've completed a critically important milestone.. .But I hope you're not only happy and proud...but also grateful...you couldn't have done it by yourself.

So take a moment now, and turn around...give your families and loved ones a round of applause. 

Now, it's funny when you think about it...you're thanking your families and loved ones, and you're saying goodbye to Wagner, but this ceremony is called Commencement...the beginning! Amidst all this pomp and circumstance...you can't just look back - you have to look forward. 

Some of you will go right out into the business world...some of you will postpone going out into real the world by continuing your education for master's degrees...professional degrees in law, medicine, journalism...and some of you probably have postponed making any decision at all, waiting for the summer...But enter the world you will...and it is a world filled with opportunities and challenges...

You can look across the harbor to Manhattan. The Big Apple. And know all that it represents: the wealth, the fashion, the media, the New York Yankees, the Mets, Knicks, and Jets and the very center of global finance. You are living in the wealthiest country in history, a citizen in a country whose political systems and laws are the envy of most of mankind, a person in a country whose medical technology is at the forefront of human effort's to defeat disease and extend life and health, a consumer in an economy of unparalleled choices, a spectator among the widest choices for entertainment and leisure activity in mankind's story.

And you'll be free to choose - where to live, what profession to follow, what to see, what to buy, with whom to associate...what to do tomorrow, next week, next month, next year...in a society just about as unbounded, meritocratic, and voluntary as any that could ever have been imagined...No hereditary monarch to demand your obedience; no code of conduct to crush your will; no group of elders to impose burdensome obligations; no conscripted service to take your freedom...You'll do as you please...Of course, you'll be judged by what you do.. .but you will have Freedom, Choice, and a remarkable degree of Privacy in a nation of 300 million.

All this is yours - gifts - you didn't have to write the Constitution, fight to preserve our freedom, cures for polio, invent the television...these are gifts, earned, created, nurtured, designed, fought for...by others…Unlimited opportunities for you…

It would be so easy to be without a care...to enjoy...to live for every new experience, without a thought for others, or for tomorrow, without a care in the world. But you can't look at that skyline across the harbor without recognizing that something's missing. Most of you weren’t here on that traumatic day almost five years ago. You didn't look across to see the strikes of the aircraft, or the plumes of smoke. You didn't stand hypnotized by the poor souls who jumped rather than perish in the flames, or wonder what exactly HAD happened as the buildings imploded downward into the streets. But you did see it on TV…and you felt the shock throughout our country and abroad.

Those tragic moments on September 11th, 2001, marked the end of innocence for America - incidents of violence and terror which afflicted Europe in the 1970's, the Mideast in the 1980's, and Africa and the Mideast in the 1990's had come to us - We were no longer protected by our oceans. We were under attack - not by a specific foreign country, but by terrorists citing the authority of Islam to murder innocent people. It was an act of war.

But when I look across that bay, I see battles from another war. Some 230 years ago, General George Washington and the Continental Army tried and failed to protect New York. He defended Brooklyn Heights, but was outmaneuvered by the British and almost lost his whole force. Escaping under the cover of a morning fog, he was again outmaneuvered and lost Manhattan. And then, foolishly trying to defend the heights north of Manhattan, one of his major commands was surrounded and virtually annihilated as Washington watched helpless from the New Jersey Palisades a few miles north of here. The British were soon in pursuit of a fragmented and dispirited American Army as it fled across the wilds of New Jersey, while behind it the American settlers began to declare their loyalty to the British King.

Within a few months after all the brave talk of independence, the Americans had received a real thrashing, and according to prevailing opinion, doomed to defeat.

But we all know what happened...how Washington turned the tables with his Christmas attack across the Delaware River to destroy British forces at Trenton...and after another four and a half long years, eventually compelled their surrender. 

And here we are today.

In the intervening five years, the United States responded. We struck and overthrew the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, chased Osama Bin Ladin out of Afghanistan, named an Axis of Evil, published a doctrine of preemption, invaded Iraq, overthrew Saddam., and searched for the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons with which the invasion was justified. Over three years ago President Bush flew out to an aircraft carrier returning from the Persian Gulf to declare major combat operations were over.

We found no weapons of mass destruction.

Now, we have roughly 130,000 American troops in Iraq, 20,000 in Afghanistan, and tens of thousands more in the region in support. We've suffered more than 2700 killed; thousands more wounded, committed upwards of $300 billion, and inflicted maybe 30-35,000 Iraqi deaths. Osama Bin Ladin and his number two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, remain on the loose.

Iraq remains wracked by violence and is providing is major training ground for terrorists. First North Korea and now Iran are defying US calls to halt their nuclear weapons programs. The incidents of terrorism around the world have increased year by year since 2001 other angry, resentful Muslims follow Bin Ladin' s example. And the good name of the US has been blemished by the invasion, the subsequent mistreatment of detainees, and reports of secret CIA prisons abroad.

This, also, is the world, which you are entering.

It is a world in which the leading power, the United States, our country has yet to establish a strategy to deal successfully with the threats around us. And a world in China and India, comprising together about 2.5 billion people, are gobbling raw materials and other commodities at an astonishing rate, and proving incredibly adept at hosting not only manufacturing processes which we used to dominate but, increasingly sophisticated knowledge industry jobs critical to the “information economy.”

Actually, there's probably never been a time when Americans have been so dependent on events abroad as they are today: the terrorist threat to our homeland, of course, but also, it is the conflict in Iraq and the operation in Afghanistan, the outsourcing of American jobs, the press of immigration, and the rising price of gasoline at the pump. And beyond all this is the increasingly ominous scientific research confirming global warming, mankind's role in contributing to it, and the foreboding implications ahead.

But these are the challenges we have to recognize and deal with. I am convinced that with the right leadership we have the will and the means to deal with these challenges we face today.

There ARE answers to each of these problems -terrorism, Iraq and Afghanistan nuclear proliferation, energy, international business, and even global warming. If we but stay true to our own principles - working with others, using diplomacy first, and force only as a last resort, listening even to those with whom we disagree, and respecting the rights and interests of others as we demand that they respect ours, if we will build sustain our alliances and strengthen international law and institutions, and if we will at home really provide opportunities for every American to develop his or her full potential, then someday, others will stand on this very spot, look across to Manhattan, and reflect with the same satisfaction we experience when thinking of George Washington: they were in danger, but they showed courage, and wisdom, and heart, and they gave us our world.

So, I told you about all the great things that everyone was giving you - and I told you about all your freedoms, choice, and privacy…but now I want to lay it on you: it's going to be up to you, and your generation, to hang on to all that you've received, and to handle the challenges our country will face.

Of course, we're not going to dump all this on you right away - take the summer off - but sooner than you might believe you'll be working these very problems in earnest.

Some of you will go into medicine, where you'll bring ordinary people back to health and give families a new life…not only be concerned with the run of the mill illnesses but also with new challenges, like avian flu or potential bio-terrorism.

Some of you will go into law. You'll be representing athletes and celebrities, helping ordinary people with their lives, protecting consumers from predatory business practices, or helping businesses produce their products - but also worried about international copyright law, and new Chinese codes.

Some of you will go into business, and you'll be thrilled to have your own business cards, an office, and real responsibilities…you may find yourself traveling to Dubai or Kazakhstan, or China, and fighting to build a business, ordering manufactured parts from abroad, setting up international communications, and then worrying about the vulnerabilities of your business to competitors with lower costs, or better connections.

And some of you, I hope, will go into the Armed Forces. You'll have immediate responsibilities for others, leadership challenges that you've never known, and interesting technical challenges, too - and you'll soon be directly involved in training the forces and perhaps even serving yourself in an ongoing military operation.

I've met many of your generation. Some just a few years older served with me in the service. I met others, fresh out of university, in my business career. And many, many actively supported me in my campaign for the Presidency three years ago. You have energy, you have brains, and you have heart.

You may be the very best group our country has ever produced. 

But as you leave today with your diploma, your families and loved ones, I want you to take a last look across the bay toward Manhattan. I want you to look at that tragic, missing skyline, and I want you to remember that out there are people, perhaps just a few, but they were enough ~ who were determined to strike and hurt this country, so determined, so committed, so hardened, that they gave their very lives to do it…they were wrong, but they were committed...

And I want you to remember George Washington and the Continental Army, and understand that we are not the first Americans to face mortal challenges. 

And I want to ask you to resolve in your hearts, as you leave this ceremony, that you are no less committed to doing what's right, to helping this country, that you are willing, each in your own ways, to dedicate your lives to the task, to raising strong families, to aiding your communities, to building strong businesses jobs, adding to the store of human knowledge, helping others, at home and abroad…

As President Theodore Roosevelt once said, “far and away the best gift that life has to offer is to work hard at work worth doing.” And for you and your generation, that is truly your gift…for there is so much to be done...and you will be able to do it.

Congratulations and best wishes to you.