this was a familiar ritual when i was growing up on the south dakota prairie. the men in my community and others would place flags at the grave sites of veterans on memorial day and veteran s day. these veterans are hobbled by old age now, but i ve come to understand their values and their spirits, the memories of what they did a half a century ago that still guide their lives. they wonder what will happen once they re gone. they as a group encountered a menace to their way of life and their values that was on a scale we will never see in our lives, and fought the good fight, made the sacrifice. i mean, every road that you drive on, every interstate that you re on, all the major companies, the monuments in your
this was a familiar ritual when i was growing up on the south dakota prairie. the men in my community and in others would place flags at the grave sites of veterans on memorial day and veterans day. these veterans are hobbled by old age now. i come to understand their values and their spirits thmpt memories of what they did a half a century ago that still guide their lives. they wonder what will happen once they are gone. they as a group encountered a menace to their way of life and their values on a scale that we will never see in our lives and fought the good fight, made the sacrifice. every road that you drive on, every interstate that you are on, all the major companies, the
country then and our country today is that i grew up in a street where nearly everyone on the street an adult, was going to school or college on the g.i. bill. right. they were buying homes with va mortgages, and we had two housing projects in the city write grew up in they were called veterans projects. right. and they were fine fine housing for veterans families. we have forgotten our veterans today. they weren t forgotten. i m ready to go back in early june to a place where i spent from the age of 7 until 15 in the middle of the south dakota prairie where the missouri river divides that state, the corps of engineers 1946 said we re going to build the largest dam in the world right here no housing, no infra infrastructure, no towns anywhere and 3,000 workers are going to come in here. so they did that and it took ten years, cost $200 million. the town they built was post-modern. it had curb and gutter and beautiful, elegant traffic
was george mcgovern, completely opposite ideologically, won the distinguished flying cross for flying bombing raids out of italy, all the way into romania and crash landed and saved his crew. those two guys talk to each other constantly. they were only interested in what s best for the state of south dakota and they were you know they had big differences but at the same time, you didn t have to pick or choose. you could believe in both of them. that s a lot different now. as we sit here at the edge of this cathedral and wondering how anyone today to coexplain to any one of these 9,346 young men who gave their lives for liberty in the country that they weren t going to stay in that they were going back to their own homes in america, how would we explain to them hour system of government our polarization, and our teamingly indifference to veterans pligts for a long long time today. we re just wondering that. yes, i m afraid we have to