"I'm told that tens of thousands of prayer meetings are being
held on this day, and for that I'm deeply grateful. We are a nation under God,
and I believe God intended for us to be free. It would be fitting and good, I
think, if on each Inaugural Day in future years it should be declared a day of
prayer.
This is the first time in our history that this ceremony has
been held, as you've been told, on this West Front of the Capitol. Standing
here, one faces a magnificent vista, opening up on this city's special beauty
and history. At the end of this open mall are those shrines to the giants on
whose shoulders we stand.
Directly in front of me, the monument to a monumental man,
George Washington, father of our country. A man of humility who came to
greatness reluctantly. He led America out of revolutionary victory into infant
nationhood. Off to one side, the stately memorial to Thomas Jefferson. The
Declaration of Independence flames with his eloquence. And then, beyond the
Reflecting Pool, the dignified columns of the Lincoln Memorial. Whoever would
understand in his heart the meaning of America will find it in the life of
Abraham Lincoln.
Beyond those monuments to heroism is the Potomac River, and
on the far shore the sloping hills of Arlington National Cemetery, with its row
upon row of simple white markers bearing crosses or Stars of David. They add up
to only a tiny fraction of the price that has been paid for our freedom.
Each one of those markers is a monument to the kind of hero
I spoke of earlier. Their lives ended in places called Belleau Wood, The
Argonne, Omaha Beach, Salerno, and halfway around the world on Guadalcanal,
Tarawa, Pork Chop Hill, the Chosin Reservoir, and in a hundred rice paddies and
jungles of a place called Vietnam.
Under one such marker lies a young man, Martin Treptow, who
left his job in a small town barbershop in 1917 to go to France with the famed
Rainbow Division. There, on the western front, he was killed trying to carry a
message between battalions under heavy artillery fire.
We're told that on his body was found a diary. On the
flyleaf under the heading, ``My Pledge,'' he had written these words: ``America
must win this war. Therefore I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will
endure, I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost, as if the issue of the whole
struggle depended on me alone.''
The crisis we are facing today does not require of us the
kind of sacrifice that Martin Treptow and so many thousands of others were
called upon to make. It does require, however, our best effort and our
willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform
great deeds, to believe that together with God's help we can and will resolve
the problems which now confront us.
And after all, why shouldn't we believe that? We are
Americans.
God bless you, and thank you."
- Extracted from President Ronald Reagan's first Inaugural
address