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From President TRUMP"Chills. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth just delivered a powerful, moving speech at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day.Secretary Hegseth: “President Trump, Vice President Vance, Chairman Kaine, Gold Star families, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us today to remember our fallen warriors. We gather here to honor our very best, gone in their youth. To properly do so, we understand who they are and what they fought for. It is our simple duty to them.You know, throughout time, civilizations have honored the powerful, the well-connected, and the well-born. Emperors and kings have built magnificent shrines to their own royal greatness. Yet in America, with our great experiment in self-government, it is fitting that the most honored and closely guarded tomb in the land is that of an anonymous soldier, of an unknown rank.When the first Unknown Soldier was selected for burial in 1921, he laid in state at the Capitol Rotunda. Throngs of Americans paid their respects. When the tomb was dedicated on November 11th, Veterans Day, the Unknown received the Medal of Honor. It’s a uniquely American tradition that we honor anonymous sacrifice above worldly greatness.While we don’t know the Unknown’s identity, race, or creed, we know his story. It’s the story of every soldier, every warrior. It’s a simple story, as old as war. A young man with hopes and dreams and loves, who’s called by his country, leaves behind his hometown, his parents, his siblings, his sweetheart—all that he knows—to go fight a war that he may or may not understand.He’s called to go through hell and back, to sleep in a trench, to eat out of a tin cup or on the hood of a Humvee, to pray as bullets and bombs thunder around him, to fear for the bullet, or the mortar, or the IED, or the RPG with his name on it. He does it willingly and stoically because he loves his country, his brothers in arms, and his family.This is the story of the Unknown, the story of the fallen soldier whom we have gathered today to honor. It is the story of the American warrior. He answered the call, fought, and died for this Republic, the ultimate sacrifice of a free people. You see, the American soldier fights not because he hates what’s in front of him, but because he loves what’s behind him.We honor his selfless sacrifice, his courage, his duty, and his love. As Jesus taught his disciples, ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’ This love is a gift given freely, and yet this gift comes with responsibility to those living.We owe a duty to those who have fallen in war; they have paid a debt we can never repay, and for that, we owe gratitude and remembrance. We owe at least this—to remember their sacrifice and honor their memory, year after year—salute after salute, ceremony after ceremony, parade after parade, prayer after prayer—that by our remembrance, we keep lit the eternal flame of their heroic deeds in defense of our nation.And we owe eternal vigilance. Eternal vigilance—the price of freedom. These men died for something: the hope of a free, secure, and peaceful Republic. That is our inheritance, and we must steward it and hand it down to our kids and our grandkids. We must live worthy of it.These men dreamed of a future in which their children would not fear of attack, no enemy could threaten their peace, and no war could require them to take up arms. The duty we owe these men is peace, which only can be achieved through strength. And because we strive for peace, we must prepare for war. That’s the job of the Chairman and I and so many others at the Defense Department. Each and every day, we will never, on behalf of those who’ve given so much, we will never be complacent.We owe these men nothing less—our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. So on this Memorial Day, in honor of the Unknown Soldiers and the known, let us rededicate ourselves to God and country, to our great Republic 249 years on. We stand on the shoulders of great men and on the shoulders of those great men in those graves. And may we live worthy of it.Thank you. God bless our warriors, and may God bless our fallen, and Amen. Amen.”https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16DoKS3omz/