This is the rest of David Clark’s speech from Memorial Day, Monday, May 31.
I would like to share a voice from one of my generation, who served their country in Vietnam. The generation who are the children of those great Americans who saved the world in World War II.
One plaque at West Point, Class of 1964, belongs to Major John Alexander Hottell III, Highland Falls, New York, a Rhoades Scholar, twice a recipient of the Silver Star, one of our country’s highest awards for gallantry in combat. Major Hottell who was killed in action in 1970 in Vietnam, while serving with the First Cavalry Division.
The year before, he had written his own obituary and sent it in a sealed envelope to his wife. In that letter, he wrote: “I deny that I died for anything-not my country, not my Army, not my fellow man. I lived for these things, and the manner in which I chose to do it involved the very real chance that I would die . . . my love for West Point, the Army and my country was great enough . . . for me to accept this possibility as part of a price which must be paid for things of great value.”
And this same American Spirit thrives on today in our young men and women, the cream of America’s crop, pitted against our enemies. The knowledge, that they are part of something bigger and more important than just themselves, is apparent from the thousands of acts of incredible courage and bravery by our young warriors in Iraq and Afghanistan.
At 0745 on 22 April 2008, a Joint Security Station in Ramadi, Iraq, was attacked by a suicide bomber driving a very large truck bomb with an estimated explosive weight over 2,000 pounds. At the time, elements of two battalions were conducting a relief in place at the station, which housed a large number of Iraqi police.
Two young Marines, Cpl. Yale and LCpl. Haerter, were standing post at the entry control point along with two Iraqi policemen . . . Without warning, a Mercedes tank truck made the turn and immediately accelerated down the 60 yard alleyway, negotiating the jerseywall serpentine obstructions and careening toward the entryway of the compound.
The Marines undoubtedly understood immediately what was taking place, as they went straight to their rifles, firing continuously until the truck lurched to a stop just outside the compound’s gate, literally a few feet from the Marines, when it detonated.
Both Marines were killed still firing their weapons. Three Marines, a 100 yards away, were wounded from the event, as were at least eight Iraqi officers and 24 civilians. A nearby mosque and house were both destroyed and the neighborhood shattered. The blast crater measured 20 feet in diameter and 5 feet deep. The entire event lasted approximately six seconds and was recorded on surveillance cameras.
At the time of the attack, there were over 50 Marines on site with a similar number of Iraqi police officers. It was only due to the bravery of the two Americans that a catastrophe was averted, but that is exactly why they were there—to prevent such a bomb from entering the compound—and they did exactly that.
They were nothing more than a couple of ordinary Marines doing an extraordinary act of selflessness. They were doing what their lieutenant told them to do, “stand your post and let nothing pass”, and they were doing their duty.
And 50 American families spent Christmas Eve with their sons who didn’t die that day in Ramadi and 50 Iraqi families celebrated the return of their sons to their homes that night.
Yale was a very poor country kid from western Virginia, and Haerter was from Long Island, New York. They didn’t know each other; they’d probably met only a few minutes before they were put on post.
Yale was a few days from going home; Haerter was just a few days in the country. Cpl. Jonathan T. Yale and LCpl. Jordan C. Haerter were awarded the Navy Cross, posthumously, for their extraordinary heroism in the face of certain death.
History will view America as God’s great gift to the world, a gift of great value that Americans must preserve, cherish and protect.
We leave here today a free people....the inheritance of this sacrifice made for us by those we loved and those who loved us. We will remember them, always. They will live on forever in our hearts and minds because we are a part of them and they are a part of us.
Please bow with me now.
Dear Lord: Today, as free men and women, we thank you for the life you bestowed upon our brothers and sisters who perished in their service to our country, their hearts forever stilled among your jungles and on your beaches, across your embattled world, in your blue skies, and in the deep waters of your oceans, which marked the way to their victory.... and the opportunity in life for them to serve others. We ask that you bless those loved ones that have been left behind and comfort them in the knowledge that these men and women, we honor today, died bravely.
Yet in death their spirit soars, in our flag their honor waves, and preserved in every American rifle, and battle streamer, the legacy of their deeds.
Let us not mourn, Lord, for those Americans who have died fighting, but rather let us be glad that such heroes have lived.
May we all meet again, Lord, on that field where warriors meet, in that place known only to you, God; go now, we humbly ask, and prepare a place for us. In your son’s name, Jesus Christ, we ask it, and to sustain your blessing on our United States of America. Amen.
