Speeches

Ambassador Rood’s Memorial Day Remarks

May 29, 2006
Clifton Pier, Nassau, Bahamas

Governor General, His Excellency The Honorable Arthur D. Hanna, The Honorable Fred Mitchell, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Public Service, Ambassador Joseph, Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, Senator Tom Harkin and Mrs. Harken, other government officials, families of Patrol Squadron 23, distinguished members of our military services, ladies and gentlemen: thank you all for coming today.

I would like to give a special thanks to Lt. Cmdr Bonner and his staff.  They have done such a remarkable job in coordinating the renovation of this monument and organizing today’s events.  I would also like to recognize the Prime Minister’s Office and the Office of Antiquities and Monuments:  I cannot express the depth of our gratitude for your support in maintaining and refurbishing this monument.  Your work means so much to the relatives of the sailors honored here and it means so much to me personally.  Thank you.

In his Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln asks, how does a country honor its heroes? How do you acknowledge their sacrifice? His answer is that you cannot. No speech given, no monument built, no wreath laid can fully convey our gratitude for their sacrifice.  

Today I have the difficult task of trying.  This monument honors the Patrol Squadron 23 and the 10 sailors who gave their lives on May 7th 1954.  Lt. Cmdr. Bonner has so eloquently told us the story of these sailors.  Today we remember them. 

These sailors are symbolic of a deeper sacrifice made by so many others.  Today is a time when Americans around the world pause to honor our countrymen who sacrificed their lives defending liberty.  America’s first Memorial Day was celebrated on May 30, 1868 to commemorate the soldiers who perished in our Civil War.  Since that time we have honored members of our armed forces killed throughout the world during conflicts large and small, all  making the supreme sacrifice to insure that freedom is not just a word, but also a reality.

And this is the reason we celebrate Memorial Day.  As said by Oliver Wendell Holmes: “It reaffirms from year to year a national act of enthusiasm and faith.  It embodies in the most impressive form our belief that to act with enthusiasm and faith is the condition of acting greatly. To fight out a war, you must believe something and want something with all your might.  So must you do, to carry anything else, to an end worth reaching.”   Memorial Day reminds us of our values and it reminds us of the cost of protecting these values.

The sacrifices we remember today were not America's alone.  Bahamians have long shown their friendship, indeed their kinship, by supporting the United States in our efforts.   So we think now, not only of this monument, but of the monument in the Garden of Remembrance off Parliament Square, and of Bahamian sacrifices to protect world freedom.  President Bush made this point when he spoke at the Memorial Day commemorations in Normandy a couple of years ago. He said:  "On Memorial Day, America honors her own. Yet we also remember all the valiant young men and women from many allied nations…who shared in the struggle here and in the suffering.  We remember the men and women who served and died alongside Americans in so many terrible battles on this continent and beyond."

Whatever personal connection you have with the soldiers of the United States of America, there is one bond that we all share.  We are unified in our purpose - to protect our peoples, our values and our ways of life.  Our mutual love for freedom will be tested again and again -- as history has shown.  But history has also shown us that the spirit -- the hearts, the souls of freedom-loving people everywhere -- will always prevail.   It will prevail because this is not a path America walks alone. Other countries, such as The Bahamas, belong to a great alliance, a union committed to democracy, individual liberties and the rule of law.

Without question, membership in the community of democracies imposes its burdens, as evidenced here today. To preserve peace, we must cherish freedom, and to promote liberty we must be prepared to confront new threats.  We must have the courage of our convictions and be willing, as were those we honor today, to act on those convictions.

So today, we honor those who died for the beliefs we hold dear, so that we could live and enjoy freedom.  We honor the sailors of Patrol Squadron 23.  And, we honor all the soldiers, Bahamian and American, who willingly paid the ultimate price to give us the opportunity to be free.