Founders Day Dinner

I'm probably not supposed to do this, but the two ladies of my life are here in the hall tonight. And, they have special attachments to West Point as well. My wife, Judy, who for 40 years has not only been my wife but my genuine partner, and I believe one of the great Army wives of all time, but also here is our daughter, Noelle, who was born at the old West Point Hospital when I was teaching here and who, by the way, is going to get married on May 11th. So, she's a West Pointer as well. Noelle we love you.

Now, before I get started, I have to say to you, it's interesting the kind of advice that you get when people learn that you're going to speak at an occasion like this. Trust me. I have got a lot of advice.

I've gotten some of the sort of standard advice from people who want to encourage me, "Don't screw up". Some of them just wanted me to feel good about myself. "Why the hell did they pick you?" I got an email from a classmate, hadn't heard from him in 10 years. Said not, "Gee, Pete. Great to talk with you, be in touch, whatnot." It said, "Pete, you're no MacArthur. Don't try a "doorman" story. Riley."

This is really helpful stuff. It really gets you into. I had a friend who appeared to have thought a lot about what kind of advice he should give me. And in all seriousness, I am not making this stuff up, he said, "Try to offend as few people as possible." Judy, who tends to get to the heart of things right away, whispered across the table as, Bill, you were introducing me, and she said, "This is a really nice evening. Watch your language."

But, the one that really got me was today walking on the pathway out by Thayer Monument, this is somebody who I have never met, did not introduce himself at all, walked over, stopped me and said, "Tonight, 25 minutes max. Don't dribble on." And just walked off. So, anyway, the way I look at it is this. My job tonight is to talk, yours is to listen and, with luck, we'll end up at the same time.

Seriously, I really can't tell you how very special I feel being asked to share some thoughts with you on this really historic moment, 200 years in the life of this fabulous institution. And to do so in this setting, it's a privilege and an honor and it's a memory that for me will last a very, very long time.

You know, surrounded here by history and with so much history to build on, it occurred to me that we should start tonight by talking about today and ask what kind of a world is it out there that you cadets and West Point look out on. It's a world of many parts. In our country, despite the recent setback in the stock market, progress surrounds us everywhere. Computing capacity and speed continues to double every two years. You think about poetry, music, architecture, sport, all fields of extraordinary development. Genome mapping, some of the advances in pharmaceuticals are pushing the biotech frontier ahead at a tremendous pace, and the list goes on and on. But, we're all aware that overlapping those achievements are worries and concerns. September 11th. It introduced a graphic new reality, a graphic image of terrorism and it left an ugly scar across the face of the civilized world, not just in this country, but all around the globe. And for those of us assembled tonight, that new reality has many consequences.

A key one of them is the extraordinary range of tasks and responsibilities that officership has come to entail. And so, the question in my mind arises is how should West Point think about and confront this new reality. As a result of all that, there's a lot of talk these days about the world being different.

You know, the truth is, the world is different now. But the fact is that for as long as there have been cadets, 200 years sitting where you're sitting now, the world has always been different. I mean, think about it. Sylvanus Thayer. When he graduated in 1808, could he have had any idea that he was going to be the one asked to transform this place? I think about Robert E. Lee when he graduated in 1829. Could he possibly have foreseen the anguishing conflict of loyalties that he and fellow cadets would confront in 1861? And, similarly, when you go through the ranks, Tom Dyer mentioned it. I mean you come up with the names. Eisenhower, Bradley, Ridgeway, Groves, Westmoreland, Schwarzkopf: Each of them stepped into a world that was remarkably different than what they anticipated. That was their lot, as it is yours. That's your challenge.

So how, then, is it that West Point prepares you for that kind of a future? Well, first and foremost, Harrods three guiding principles: Duty, Honor, Country. As cadets, you're reminded of them every day. But West Point rests on its foundation, the fundamentals that underpin what goes on here day by day and which allows the Academy to achieve its purpose. They're the most enduring guides that we have. But tonight, rather than retracing that familiar ground of Duty, Honor, Country, I'd like to ask you to think with me about three other fundamentals, subordinate indeed to those three hallowed words, but important as well in understanding why 200 years from its founding, this institution remains vital for the future of this country.

The first of these other principles I'd like to talk about is winning. If there was one word that distills the essence of this place, that word is winning. Last night, Charlie Rose dedicated an hour-long TV program to the Military Academy. At one point asked -- Charlie asked your First Captain, Andy Blickham, what was the most important experience of his four years at West Point. Without any hesitation, Andy said, "Winning the Army/Navy game." He's no fool. But, here's the point. Rose was visibly startled by the answer. He found it incomprehensible that somebody with as many achievements and personal recognitions, one of the key cadets, would find that the single most important part of having been at West Point was winning the Army/Navy game.

West Point is unique. The spirit here is vital and it's contagious. Winning is the apex of attitude. It's a life fuse, a culture, a frame of mind, an unwavering aspiration, an overriding goal. Not that you always win; nobody does. Not that you don't accept defeat, at least acknowledge it; you do. But, MacArthur's axiom is apt and timely: "There is no substitute for victory." Winning is fundamental. It's the keystone ideal of the warrior. It's the raw primal absolute of the soldier. It's the uncompromising core commitment of this Academy. And it needs to become your personal creed.

Now, don't misunderstand. Winning isn't everything. A winning attitude is. Let me illustrate what I mean. In October of 1998 at South Bend, Indiana, the Army football team met the fiery -- Fighting Irish in a close, fiercely fought game. The lead changed hands I think six different times. Many of you were there. With a little over a minute remaining and the score tied 17 to 17, Notre Dame, as is its wont, kicked a 48-yard field goal, went into the lead and ultimately won the game. Now, it turned out that Judy and I were standing next to Father Theodore Hessberg, the revered President of Notre Dame when the field goal was kicked, and as time ran out. And, as is the Army team's tradition, they got to the middle of the field and lined up and began shaking hands with the members of the Notre Dame team. As that was going on, Father Hessberg fell noticeably silent. There was a long, awkward pause. And then, speaking sort of to nobody, he said, "We've lost our way." Puzzled, I asked him, "What do you mean?" He said, "That's the first time in years I've seen the Notre Dame team shake hands with members of the opposition. You know what it means to win and what it means to have fought valiantly to the end. Today, you've demonstrated a winning attitude. Notre Dame needs to change. You have shown us the way." Winning. The soul of this place is selfless service. The heart is winning.

Leaders of character. Not truly a principle, I suppose, a term we badger about with enormous regularity, but I believe the commitment to produce leaders of character is so central to this place and so central to everything that goes on every day that it warrants us thinking about it tonight. At this institution, you are constantly surrounded by the spirit and the sense of leadership. You come to appreciate that to lead on the battlefield and to protect this country from those who would do us harm requires a special kind of leader, a leader of character. People outside these walls often ask the question, "Where do these kind of leaders come from?" And the truth is, that through the ages, every great movement, every great enterprise of history has had a special place, a touchstone, a citadel, a centering state, a temple, a hallmark, a guiding light, a place that worries deeply, not about just what works, but about what's right. And for our Army, and I believe in many respects, for our nation, that place is West Point. I have always believed that more than anything else West Point is the crucible of character, a place where you learn not by what you say, but by what you do, what kind of a leader you need to be.

There are many requisites of that kind of leader, but at the center of it is one immutable trait: Courage. Courage in different forms. The time-tested courage of soldiers that, throughout all our country's wars, against all odds and against all reasons, have defined the definition of valor. The singular courage of my classmate, Rocky Versace, whom I'm very pleased to say soon will be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, who after almost two years of torture and deprivation by his Viet Cong captors, stuffed into a bamboo cage no bigger than he was, on the night before he was executed, alone and in the dark, was heard by his fellow prisoners singing "God Bless America". But courage has another face. It's a face in the world of the day-to-day. It's a face that understands even small compromises of principle can lead to a decay that undermines integrity, a face that values doing things right, not because anybody else will know but because you do, a face that stands for honesty, that challenges authority when authority is wrong and never quits until the task is finished. Leaders of character, the valued product of this place. It's what you're destined to be.

Third, fun. Fun! This one may surprise you. But, you know, most Americans have a profound misconception about this place. Think about it. I would guess virtually every person in this hall has come to recognize that the glue that holds this institution together is classmates. It's been that way from the beginning, always will be. And what makes it so? It's shared experiences. Now, West Point, like other colleges and universities, is a concentration of young people. Almost a third of the corps of cadets are teenagers. Now, you young people are terrific, but you're young people, and being young people you're motivated to a significant extent by mirth, mockery, energy and fun. During my time as a cadet, we stole the Navy goat two or three times. I can't quite remember which. We quit doing it, not because of some epiphany of maturity, it just got too easy and didn't seem worth the effort anymore.

My point is this. There's a vital core seriousness about the United States Military Academy. That's as it is and as it should be. But tempering that core of seriousness is a sense of youthfulness, adventurousness, excitement, exuberance, fun. These qualities inevitably cause you to spend time together and to play and do jokes and do all the things that cause your lives to come together in a special kind of togetherness. And that's the togetherness that's the enduring fabric of the Long Gray Line. And that's important because your life in the Army and your responsibilities as an officer in the larger Army family have a core seriousness about them as well. But, it's also a life of lighthearted moments, of the things that make the memories of a lifetime.

As junior officers, we had a lot of kids and no money, but we never felt poor. We lived in places that many thought were sort of God forsaken out of the way, but we made them home. We took our work very seriously, but, hopefully, ourselves less so. There were incidents that decades later we still remember with a real fondness. When Judy was eight months pregnant with our son, Shawn, I was a Company Commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. And one morning at 0430 we had an unannounced callout and I had 45 minutes to assemble the company. The cheap car we had didn't start. It was cold and dark and the rain was beating down. Judy wouldn't fit behind the wheel, and you had to push it to jump start it. It's bizarre when I look back on it now, but without any discussion, no debate, Judy went and got a raincoat and my eight month pregnant wife pushed that flapped out car down the road so I could go. That was 38 years ago, but the memory of that lady jump-start is etched indelibly in my mind forever. That may not fully qualify as fun, but it sure was memorable and it served us well through a lot of years ever since then.

Just a few weeks ago, a number of classmates and myself and our wives went out on our annual ski mini-reunion. And after lunch one day, after we'd talked and laughed and reminisced, everybody bundled up and went down a nearby slope. Hanging back, I gazed down on that happy group with some nostalgia and awe. I realized it was 47 years ago we met as young teenagers on Organization Day. Through the intervening almost half century we fought wars, raised families, shared successes and disappointments, followed varied careers and, to this day, we seek one another's company and enjoy one another's friendship. The basis of all that developed here at this place as cadets. There is a long gray line. It's real and it's lasting and it's on of the important reasons why 200 years from its founding, West Point remains stalwart and matters very much.

Let me conclude by sharing with you one more personal experience. Years ago, I had a rare privilege. It occurred in the spring of my first class year, not a lot different than right now, when the non-stop avalanche of sunrise to midnight activities had slowed down just a little bit. It happened that General MacArthur, who was living in an apartment in the Waldorf Towers in New York City at that time, had been ill. And I asked if I might be allowed to pay him a call. Now, it was an utterly presumptuous idea. But, with a typical cadet's attitude that anything's impossible -- anything is possible, it seemed to me like a good idea at the time. Well, to my astonishment, they approved it. And so, on the appointed day, I went down to New York City to pay my call on one of the most august figures of the 20th Century.

I remember it like it happened yesterday. The General met me at the door in his cadet bathrobe. It was covered all over with gaudy badges and things of indecipherable origin. He greeted me warmly. "Dawkins", he said. "How good of you to stop by." Needless to say, I was completely undone by this and speechless. But what happened then remains to this day one of the most memorable moments of my life. General of the Armies, Douglas McArthur, speaking as though I was some dear friend or trusted colleague, reminisced for an hour and a half about his life, what it had meant for him to be a cadet, serving as a young officer, the war in the Pacific, Japan after the war, the special relationship of the military in America and the timeless principles of men at arms. It was an encyclopedic interpretive discourse of life as he knew it. And most memorable of all that he said was that each episode, each moment, each chapter, he paused to explain how it was that West Point had prepared him.

In thinking of it, I'm reminded of a verse from the Harrod's school song. "40 years on, growing older and older, what will it mean to you 40 years on?" Well, forty-some years on it means more than I could ever explain. Each one of us who becomes a cadet is privileged. Each one of us who graduates is marked. Each one of us lives a life of expectations; our own and those of others. Don't ever believe that what you do isn't important. Don't ever believe that you don't count. Each of us has something to contribute. Little or large, every contribution matters. And in the years ahead, you, too, again and again will find that it was West Point who prepared you.

For 200 years the contributions of the graduates of this Academy have served this country honorably and positively influenced the world. They are the heritage that we honor tonight. They are the enduring legacy of this institution. And you cadets assembled here and your fellow members of the Corps are the promise of the future. So it is that each year on Founder's Day, tonight for the 200th time, we sons of an earlier day take a moment to grip hands and take stock. Not so much of West Point, the institution, but West Point, the framer and fashioner of lives. Duty, honor, country. First and foremost, once and always. But more, besides. Winning, leaders of character, fun, goodness, service, courage, resolve, valor, trust. What more could a person possibly ask than to be part of such a place?

Godspeed and good night.