Earlier today, President Obama gave his last commencement address of the season, at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. In remarks that were lighthearted, but also reflected the seriousness of the graduates’ future, the President praised the graduates’ devotion and courage and expressed pride in their service to America – service that “will be shaped by the values that have kept us strong for more than 200 years.”
The President told the graduates about a time he visited Afghanistan:
I’ve seen your pride, when I was in, of all places, Afghanistan. I was in Bagram, thanking our troops for their service. And I was giving a shout-out to every service -- Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. And then, way in the back of the crowd, a voice shouted out: “and Coast Guard!” (Laughter.) There was no ocean in sight. (Laughter.) Not a body of water visible anywhere. (Laughter.) But the Coast Guard was there, serving with honor, as you have in every major conflict that our nation has ever fought.
President Obama also commended the Coast Guard’s ability to respond in times of crisis to help our country and those in need:
In you we see the same courage of the Coast Guardsmen who defended our young nation when we didn’t have a Navy, who preserved our Union, who fought back at Pearl Harbor, who landed our boats on the beaches of Normandy, and who patrolled the rivers of Vietnam.
In you we see the readiness that has made the Coast Guard one of our nation’s first responders —leading the evacuation of lower Manhattan on 9/11, and often being the very first Americans on the scene, from the earthquake in Haiti to the oil spill in the Gulf.
In you we see the same compassion that has led Coast Guardsmen to pull stranded Americans from the rooftops during Katrina, save desperate migrants clinging to rafts in the Caribbean, and even today, as the Coast Guard rescues Americans from the surging Mississippi.
As he concluded, the President touched on the character of the American spirit and the work ahead for the graduating cadets:
We Americans are an optimistic people. We know that even the darkest storms pass. We know that a brighter day beckons; that, yes, tomorrow can be a better day. For through two centuries of challenge and change, we have never lost sight of our guiding stars -- the liberty, the justice, the opportunity that we seek for ourselves and the universal freedoms and rights that we stand for around the world.
So, cadets, if we remember this -- if you stay true to the lessons you’ve learned here on the Thames, if we hold fast to what keeps us strong and unique among nations, then I am confident that future historians will look back on this moment and say that when we faced the test of our time, we stood our watch. We did our duty. We continued our American journey. And we passed our country, safer and stronger, to the next generation.
Click here to read the President’s full remarks.