This is the burden of leadership--and the strength that has made America the beacon of freedom in a searching world.
This nation has never found glory in war. Our people have never wanted to abandon the blessings of home and work, for distant lands and deadly conflict. If we fight in anger, it is only because we have to fight at all. And all of us yearn for a world where we will never have to fight again.
Each of us will measure, within ourselves, the value of this great struggle. Any cost in lives is beyond our power to measure. But the cost of closing our eyes to aggression is beyond mankind's power to imagine.
This we do know: Our cause is just. Our cause is moral. Our cause is right.
Let future generations understand the burden and the blessings of freedom. Let them say, we stood where duty required us to stand.
Let them know that together, we affirmed America, and the world, as a community of conscience.
The winds of change are with us now. The forces of freedom are united. We move toward the next century, more confident than ever, that we have the will at home and abroad, to do what must be done--the hard work of freedom.
May God bless the United States of America.
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