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McCain Addresses Forrestal Lecture Series
September 17, 1997
Annapolis, Maryland - Today, U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) delivered the following remarks to the Forrestal Lecture series:Thank you. All those years ago, when Admiral Larson and I were midshipmen I indulged in the normal daydreams of a young man about what kind of honors awaited me later in life. I assure you, never in my wildest flights of youthful fancy did I imagine that someday I would be honored to give the commencement address at an Academy graduation, as I was several years ago, or that I would be invited to speak in such an august forum as the Forrestal Lecture. I might have imagined it for Chuck who saw his duty far more clearly then than did I. But an old man learns what a young man seldom appreciates: that life is rich with irony and unexpected twists of fate, and is all the more fascinating for them.
So thank you very much for this unexpected honor. I hope to repay your kindness by trying to avoid disappointing you with my remarks. If I fail, please attribute it only to my natural failings as a public speaker, and not to any disrespect for you. As you all know, I still make my living at public expense. No longer a naval officer, I now answer to the title, "Senator." That word is less a form of address these days than it is an epithet. But I entered politics with some of the same expectations that I had when I was commissioned an ensign. First among them was my belief that serving my country was an honor, indeed, the most honorable life an American could lead. I believe that still. Regrettably, many Americans do not. They hold politicians in complete contempt and admonish their children to avoid the temptation of a political career. There was a poll published recently which found that 36% of Americans thought their elected representatives were "dedicated public servants" while 44% found them to be "lying windbags". Not exactly a ringing endorsement for my chosen profession, and while I may make light of the public's distrust for us, in truth, it disturbs me greatly.
As a young man I would respond aggressively and sometimes irresponsibly to anyone whom I perceived as questioning my honor. Those responses often got me into a fair amount of trouble earlier in my life. I am not a young man now, and while I have been known to occasionally forget the discretion which is expected of a person of my years and station, I lack both the physical ability and, perhaps, the emotional fortitude to address attacks upon my honor in the manner in which I once addressed them.
That is not to say, however, that such attacks injure me less than they once did. They may even injure me more. But I try to rely more on my wit these days than I do on more violent forms of rebuttal.
As I recall my days as a midshipman, I remember with affection the unruly passions of youth, and how they would govern our concepts of honor. I remember how zealously we attended the needs of our self-respect. As I grew older, and as the challenges to my self-respect grew more varied, I was surprised to discover that my while my sense of honor had matured, it's defense mattered even more to me than it did when I believed that honor was such a vulnerable thing that any empty challenge threatened it.
Now, as I find myself faced with a popular challenge to the honor of a profession which I am a willing member of, I feel it is imperative that I do all I can to address the causes of the public's distrust. Toward that end, I have joined others in advocating a number of government and political reforms; reform of the way Congress spends money; reform of ethical guidelines for the institutions of Government; and lately, reform of the way political campaigns are financed.
Our purpose is to give Americans a government that is less removed in style and substance from them, and to help restore the people's faith in an America that is greater than the sum of its special interests.
The strongest impetus for reform of the federal campaign finance system is the fear that customary American cynicism about government has in recent years shown signs of becoming something worse, something more dangerous to the country's well-being – indifference and alienation.
I am a conservative, and I believe it is a very healthy thing for Americans to be skeptical about the purposes and practices of public officials and refrain from expecting to much from their government. Self-reliance is the ethic that made America great, not consigning personal responsibilities to the State.
However, small government conservatives are not chasing idealized anarchy. Government is intended to support our constitutional purpose to "establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." When the people come to believe that government is so dysfunctional that it no longer serves these ends, basic civil consensus may suffer grave harm and fragment our culture further. This concern should motivate all public officials to repair both the appearance and the reality of government corruption. Whether great numbers of elected officials are in fact bribed by campaign contributors to cast votes contrary to the national interest is not the single standard for determining the need for reform.
I have always found that the most difficult choices between honor and dishonor occur when no one is watching; when only you know if you have done right or wrong. For a politician, that presents a dilemma, for we like to have our virtue affirmed in the public spotlight. But no matter how clever you are in crafting a public image of integrity, if that image is false, the truth will eventually emerge and usually sooner than later. The lessons I learned as a young man and an officer have generally withstood the temptations of public life to cut a few corners here and there for the sake of ambition. I have tried to serve in my political career the principles I held in the Navy. I don't want any of you to mistake this statement as a claim to sainthood. I am standing in a place that stood witness to some of my less virtuous behavior. And I am standing too near Chuck Larson, who has known me too long and too well to let me get away with such a false boast. I have all too often, in public and private, fallen well short of the sterling example of rectitude I may pretend to be to my children.
My only claim is that I have found it far preferable in one short lifetime to stick by the truths that give greater meaning to life than fame or good fortune. By so doing, you may not always enjoy the affection of others, but you will earn their respect, which is, of course, a much more precious commodity. Even more important, you will keep your self-respect -- the most precious thing of all.
What few accomplishments I have achieved as a politician, I did by convincing my colleagues that I was acting for a higher purpose than self-interest or, more accurately, that selfinterest and principle are not necessarily conflicting objects of politics.
As I said, I had learned that lesson before I started in politics. I learned it from my family, from the Academy, from the Navy, and I learned it in war. But I do not believe war or even military service are the only means to honor. God grants us all the privilege of having our character tested and our honor affirmed. The tests come frequently. We all fail some, but, hopefully not most of them. They come as often in peace as in war; as often in private as in public.
But for me, many of those tests came in Vietnam; the only war I fought in, and the place where I learned much of what I know about honor. I do not cherish a romantic remembrance of war. All wars are awful. When nations seek to resolve their differences by force of arms a million tragedies ensue. Nothing, not the valor with which it is fought nor the nobility of the cause it serves can glorify war. Whatever is won in war, it is loss that the veteran remembers most keenly.
If most Americans feel they have cause to doubt our integrity then we must seek all reasonable means to persuade them otherwise. Reform of our campaign finance laws is indispensable to that end.
As long as the wealthiest Americans can make six figure contributions to political parties and gain the special access to power that such generosity confers on the donor, most Americans will dismiss even the most virtuous politician's claim of fairness and patriotism. More importantly, most Americans will have good cause to doubt their constitutional guarantee to equal protection under the laws we write.
Meaningful campaign finance reform will not cure public cynicism about modern politics. Nor will it completely free politics from influence peddling. But, coupled with other reforms, it may prevent cynicism from becoming utter alienation, as Americans see that their elected representatives value their reputations more than their incumbency. I hope it would even encourage more Americans to seek public office, not for the honorifics bestowed on election winners, but for the honor of serving a great nation, and working to make it better. We must not fear to take risks for our country. We must not value the privileges of power so highly that we use that power unfairly, and subordinate the country's interests to our own comfort. We may think that we trade on the nation's good name to stay in office and shine the luster of our professional reputations, but the public's growing disdain for us is a stain upon our honor. That is an injury no one should suffer quietly. I was taught that long ago, by better men than me. I am the son and grandson of admirals. My grandfather was an aviator; my father a submariner. They were my first heroes, and their respect for me has been the most lasting ambition of my life. The lessons I learned from them about honor were reaffirmed by the traditions of this Academy, and by my subsequent experiences as a naval officer. The most enduring truth I learned was that honor was not synonymous with public acclaim. virtue is not determined in moments of public attention to our behavior. Courage, devotion, humility, compassion -- all the noble qualities of humanity -- are not practiced in pursuit of public approval. They are means to much nobler ends. And they are ends in themselves. "Character," said a 19th Century evangelist, "is what you are in the dark."
In his poem, "The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water,"the great Irish poet, Yeats, wrote this verse:
"I hear the old, old men say All that's beautiful drifts away Like the waters."
Though I am, thankfully, not yet stuck with the appellation "old, old man," I grow closer to that rank than my much enjoyed and terribly misspent youth. And I take Yeats' point. Like most people, when I reflect back on the adventures, joys and beauty of youth, I feel a longing for what is lost and cannot be restored. But though the happy pursuits and casual beauty of the young prove ephemeral, something better can endure, and endure until our last moment on earth. And that is the honor we earn and the love we give when we sacrifice with others for something greater than self-interest.
We cannot choose the moments. They arrive unbidden by us. We can choose to let the moments pass, and avoid the difficulties they entail. But the loss we would incur by that choice is much dearer than the tribute we once paid to vanity and pleasure. I knew many men whose moments arrived in Vietnam, and who in their answer set a standard of honor that few could surpass. And I will always be grateful to my Creator, that I was allowed to stand witness to such love and honor.
Every veteran remembers those friends whose sacrifice was eternal. Most veterans have at one time or another been called a hero, and it is at that moment we feel most keenly the memory of friends who did not come home to the country we loved so dearly. I cannot help but wince when heroism is ascribed to me. For I once saw men pay a much higher price for that honor than was asked of me.
I am grateful to have come home alive. I prayed daily for deliverance from war. No one of my acquaintance ever chose death over homecoming. But I knew some men who chose death over dishonor. The memory of them, of what they bore for their country helps me see the virtue in my own humility, and to find honor in that humility.
Many years have passed since I learned that lesson. But I have not let the privileges of my present life obscure the memory of what I saw a long time ago, in another walk of life. And in recent years when occasions arrived to choose between honor and something appealing but ephemeral, the choice was made easier by the memory of those who once made much more difficult choices, and accepted the hard consequences.
Last November, I had occasion to recall an example of courage and honor that struck in me a deep chord of remembrance that no matter how much we invest in advancing our careers, professional success or failure is ultimately insignificant to our self-respect, and our peace of mind.
I had been asked to make brief remarks at a small, moving ceremony in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The occasion was the dedication of a memorial to the Marines who fought in the last combat action of our war in Indochina -- the rescue of the crew of the Mayaguez, the American ship that had been seized by the Khmer Rouge.
I don't know how many of you remember the rescue and the losses we suffered in its execution. Among the casualties was one Marine fire team which was mistakenly left behind, almost certainly alive, the details of whose fate we may never know, but who probably continued to fight for days, even weeks, before all trace of them disappeared.
That tragic, closing episode in our long engagement in Vietnam is not ranked in the first order of American battles. It was a quick, confused engagement which did not go according to plan. Except for its brevity, the Mayaguez rescue could have served as a fitting metaphor for the whole of our war in Southeast Asia.
Like the war, the Mayaguez incident is recalled, when it is recalled at all, more for its mistakes than for the lessons of duty and honor exemplified in the conduct of the men who fought it. That is unfortunate. For in that encounter, as in the war that preceded it, Americans fought for love and honor, and their service should be remembered in this country as an affirmation of human virtue and a priceless element of our national self-respect. When the time came for them to answer their country's call and fight on a field they did not know, they came. And on that small island they served well the country that sent them there. In the fog of a hard battle gone wrong, they held high a lantern of courage and faith that illuminated the way home with honor. Where they rest is unknown, but their honor is eternal, and lives in our country for so long as she remains worthy of the sacrifice of such brave men. They were family and friends to some; heroes to us all -- who lived, fought and died for the love and honor of a free people.
"All that's beautiful drifts away," except love and honor. And that, my friends, makes all the difference, all the difference in the world.
Thank you
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