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Thursday, July 13, 2006

Douglas MacArthur


Douglas MacArthur
Originally uploaded by shersteve.
Surrounding this statue of General Douglas MacArthur are engraved sections of text from his farewell address to West Point. I took pictures of each of the sections but instead of posting multiple pictures, I was able to find the full text of the Thayer Acceptence Address, May 12, 1962.

What is engraved in each section surrouding the status follows:

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.


You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the nation's destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds. The Long Gray Line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country.


The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished, tone and tint. They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears, and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen vainly, but with thirsty ears, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll. In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.
Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country.


I encourage you to take the time to read the full text.

It is quite good. An American classic.


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