Vice President Joe Biden honored America’s fallen soldiers during a Memorial Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery today, calling it “the greatest honor in my public life.”
Biden gave thanks to the generations of “soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines” who are “the heart and soul, and I would say spine of this nation.” Those Americans, Biden said, “have died that we may live.”
And as a a nation we pause today to remember them. They gave their lives fulfilling their oaths to this nation and to us.
Those soldiers have “imparted a responsibility on us, to recognize, to respect, to honor and to care for those who risk their lives so that we can live our lives.”
Before his speech, Biden laid a wreath at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
“Today is a day in which sorrow mixes with incredible pride,” the vice president said. “We mourn those we’ve lost,” but also “take great pride in the lives they lived and the service they provided.”
Love is why we’re here today. To show our love for the men and women who died showing their love for this great country.
“Many of you are now waiting for family members still overseas, many in harms way. And some of you have stood and waited for a loved one that did not return, and live now with the knowledge that you’ll one day be reunited with him, with our heavenly father.”
America’s soldiers — who Biden called “a new generation of warriors” — know that “the promise and the peril of this time have never been greater.”
“It will take and it has taken equally great sacrifice as those who’ve gone before them,” Biden said.
They lived with integrity. They served nobly. They gave everything. They fought for what they believed in. And maybe most importantly, they believed in something bigger than themselves. They believed in all of you. They believed in all of us. And they believed in America.
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