Duty, Honor, Country

Duty, Honor, Country:
Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be,
what you can be,
what you will be.
They are your rallying points:
to build courage when courage seems to fail;
to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith;
to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.
Unhappily,
I possess neither that eloquence of diction,
that poetry of imagination,
nor that brilliance of metaphor
to tell you all that they mean.
The unbelievers will say they are but words,
but a slogan,
but a flamboyant phrase.
Every pedant,
every demagogue,
every cynic,
every hypocrite,
every troublemaker,
and I am sorry to say,
some others of an entirely different character,
will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.
But these are some of the things they do.
They build your basic character.
They mold you for your future roles as the custodians of the nation’s defense.
They make you strong enough to know when you are weak,
and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid.
They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure,
but humble and gentle in success;
not to substitute words for actions,
not to seek the path of comfort,
but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge;
to learn to stand up in the storm
but to have compassion on those who fall;
to master yourself before you seek to master others;
to have a heart that is clean,
a goal that is high;
to learn to laugh,
yet never forget how to weep;
to reach into the future
yet never neglect the past;
to be serious
yet never to take yourself too seriously;
to be modest
so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness,
the open mind of true wisdom,
the meekness of true strength.
They give you a temper of the will,
a quality of the imagination,
a vigor of the emotions,
a freshness of the deep springs of life,
a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity,
of an appetite for adventure over love of ease.
They create in your heart the sense of wonder,
the unfailing hope of what next,
and the joy and inspiration of life.
They teach you in this way to be
an officer and a gentleman.
—    Douglas MacArthur
General of the Army
From his speech to the Corps of Cadets at West Point
12 May 1962
.
On This Day In:
2022	You Ought To Be Having Fun
2021	Democrats Talking To Republicans
	Talkin’ To Myself And Feelin’ Old
2020	You Are Not Late (Yet)
2019	Too Difficult To Try
2018	Hold Fast
2017	The Only Real Security
2016	Time Said
2015	If Only Common Sense Were More Common
2014	PTI
2013	What Now, Then?
2012	Big C, Little B
	Duty, Honor, Country

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