Sen. John F. Kerry spoke today to the National Guard Conference in Las Vegas, Nev. A transcript follows.
SPEAKER: U.S. SENATOR JOHN F. KERRY (D-MA)
KERRY: It's a great honor to be here. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much.
It is wonderful, wonderful to be here with you in this always fascinating city. I gather you guys have been here for about four days. Does anybody have any money left? And you're obviously strong because you're still at it, and I admire that.
I just came in from Washington. The big difference between Washington and Las Vegas is that in Las Vegas people gamble with their own money, folks.
(APPLAUSE)
I am honored to be here. I can't tell you how much. I really am. And I respect so enormously the sharing of our democracy in the way that General Hargett (ph) just mentioned.
I want to recognize the general. He and I were just talking. He talked about 42 years of service. I don't think it gets better than that in terms of contribution to our country.
Thank you, sir, for what you do to lead the Guard.
(APPLAUSE)
And I want to thank General Harrison also, both of them for their terrific leadership of the Guard.
I thank General Schultz and General James for their outstanding work as well. And it's a pleasure for me to be able to acknowledge personally General Keefe from my home state of Massachusetts. I'm honored to be here with him. It's great to see him here.
And I want to thank all of the general officers, the delegates and the members who are here with us today.
And I want to thank a special friend of mine. He's the former NATO supreme allied commander. But as you know, in his many, many roles, rising to the rank of four star, none probably stood out more than his leadership of the war in Kosovo, where for 78 days of a bombing campaign, with more than 1,000 planes flying, they lost only two planes, didn't lose any pilots, lost no armed services, armed forces members, and won the war. And his contribution to our country will stand for a long time.
Thank you, General Clark, for who you are and what you do. Appreciate it.
(APPLAUSE)
I really am proud to stand before you today, and I'm grateful to have the opportunity to share thoughts with you, to have a conversation about our country. And I came out here because I wanted to be able to look you in the eye and say thank you. Thank you for your service, thank you for caring, thank you for the sacrifices that you and your families make for our country.
As General Hargett (ph) mentioned a moment ago, I do come from a state with a great tradition of service and a great understanding of who you are. You can't live in the shadow of Bunker Hill, Lexington Green, the bridge at Concord, and not know the meaning of minutemen and of citizen service to our country.
For more than three centuries, as all of you know better than anybody, our National Guard has stood on the frontlines of freedom. The Guard fought in that first great revolution, and it's defended our country ever since -- here in America, and around the world.
And like those who came before you, you joined the Guard because for you, the threats to our ideals were a call to action.
KERRY: You join because for you, sitting on the sidelines in a time of peril simply wasn't an option. And you joined because for you, patriotism isn't saying you love your country, it's living it every single day.
Please join me, as I know you have already, but as we should every day in sending our respect, our admiration and our thanks of a nation to your brothers and sisters in arms who are standing up for freedom around the world. We are grateful as a nation.
(APPLAUSE)
There's obviously something going on here at home, too. The general told me a few moments ago that some of your members, some of them had to leave to go back home to Alabama and elsewhere because of what's happening with the storms. And every time you open a newspaper, you turn on the evening news, you read the heartbreaking stories about floods, what we just saw in the film a moment ago from the Red Cross: fires, hurricanes.
And when you see the indelible images of September 11th, the National Guard is there, often risking your lives to save ours and stand up for our country. In the past few weeks, thousands of you -- I met many of them when I was down in Florida a little while ago -- have been in the eye of the storm, preparing for Hurricane Charley, Hurricane Frances and Hurricane Ivan and, afterwards, helping our citizens to be able to rebuild their homes, rebuild their lives.
Behind the headlines, through countless acts of courage, of honor and of quiet sacrifice, all of you are keeping America safe, reporting for duty on a moment's notice -- ready, reliable, essential and accessible.
General Hargett (ph) gave me a little Revere Bowl (ph) and inscribed on it are the words "more than ever." And it is true that today, more than ever, the Guard is the essential ingredient of helping America to be who we are. Nothing could make us more proud, and I thank you for your service.
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The reach of today's Guard, as we know, is unlike any time before in our history. In Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans you've been mobilized in record numbers for extended lengths of time. Gone are the days when you could just tell your family, "Well, it's just going to be a little old six months, or maybe nine months. Just a year."
Today we've got people doing multiple deployments, serving 18, 20, even 22 months. We've got young kids in families here at home sending letters to their parents asking, "When are you coming home?"
KERRY: "When will I see you again?"
And week after week, those mothers and fathers can only write back the same frustrating answer: "I just don't know."
Last week, we reached a tragic milestone in Iraq. More than 1,000 American service men and women have been killed in the line of duty, and more than 100 of them were members of the National Guard. Thousands more have been injured, many of them seriously so.
I have visited with some of them in our military hospitals, and let me tell you, as I think you know, I cannot overstate their patriotism, their courageous spirit, their commitment to our country, and especially, their commitment to their brothers and sisters who are still in harm's way. We honor every last one of them for their proud service to our nation. And we pray for their families and their loved ones.
But honoring your service with our thoughts and our prayers...
(BREAK IN COVERAGE)
KERRY: ... during and after mobilization, end of story. That's what I believe.
(APPLAUSE)
KERRY: Right now, thousands in the Guard still aren't getting their paychecks on time. And some don't get them at all.
So people are calling home from the frontlines. And instead of talking about how the kids are doing in school, they're talking about how to cut through the red tape, how to pay the bills.
That's wrong. And I believe we have to change it.
Right now, too many in the Guard still don't have the body armor, though the general informs me that they're beginning to catch up, and they're now getting more of it, but the night vision goggles and radios that they need to do the jobs. Too many are using outdated equipment and hand-me-downs from the regular forces. And they're wondering if today will be the unlucky day when something doesn't work.
That's wrong, and I believe we have to change it.
Right now, those who serve in the Guard can't receive retirement benefits until age 60. And this administration can find the money to give the wealthiest people in America another tax cut, but we can't find the money to be able to find the funding to lower the age to 55, even when we're spending $200 billion to go it alone in Iraq.
I believe that's wrong. And for those who have served in active duty in conflicts abroad, we have to change it and permit retirement at 55.
(APPLAUSE)
Right now, members of the Guard who are serving overseas are losing paychecks here at home. Some are passed over for promotions, and returning to find that jobs that they once held are gone.
I think that's wrong, and we have to change it with a different policy about how we create jobs and protect people who serve their country.
Right now, our troops, just an honest assessment, common sense, which is an American value, says that we are overstretched and overextended...
(BREAK IN COVERAGE)
KERRY: ... in serious trouble.
KERRY: That is the truth, as hard as it is to bear. In the Bible it says it's the truth that sets you free. And in America, we are a country that has been built on our ability to take the truth, and turn it around and deal with it.
I believe you deserve a president who isn't going to gild that truth or gild our national security with politics, who is not going to ignore his own intelligence, who isn't going to live in a different world of spin, who will give the American people the truth, not a fantasy world of spin, but a world where we challenge our brave men and women to be able to meet the test of our times.
The hard truth is, and this is a hard truth, that our president has made serious mistakes in taking us to war in Iraq. He was wrong to rush to war without giving the inspectors the time to do their job and bring allies to our side. He was wrong to rush to war without understanding and planning for the postwar in Iraq, without even securing nuclear facilities or ammo dumps, some of which weapons today are being turned on our own troops.
Wrong not to recognize the inter-tribal and nationalistic realities of Iraq so that we have the kind of extended conflict that we have today. Wrong to rush to war without the major allies that could have been with us, helping us. Wrong to send our troops into battle without the equipment that they needed to do their jobs, either the armor, or the armored humvees. Wrong to ignore the best advice of America's own military, including his own Army chief of staff, General Shinseki, who told him how many troops we would not and found himself retired early.
So when it comes to Iraq, it's not that I would have done just one thing differently. I would have done almost everything differently.
And today, because of those wrong choices, America has borne 90 percent of the casualties and paid nearly 90 percent of the bill in Iraq. Contrast that with the first gulf war, where our allies paid 95 percent of the cost.
And perhaps worst of all, the mess in Iraq, by the judgment of many, has set us back in terms of the war on terror. The simple fact is that when it comes to the war on terror, this administration has taken its eye off the ball.
In the months after September 11th, our troops were doing a magnificent job in Afghanistan. They were hot on the trail of Osama bin Laden. They had him cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora. But instead of staying the course and letting them, the best-trained troops in the world, finish the job, George Bush turned over critical military and operations in Tora Bora to a band of warlords.
As a result, Osama bin Laden escaped. And we haven't seen him since.
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