Learn English John McCain We live in a land of ideals not blood and soil with BIG subtitles

Thank You total my dear friend for those

mostly undeserved kind words

Vice President Biden and I have known

each other for a lot of years now more

than 40 if you’re counting we knew each

other back when we were young and

handsome and smarter than everyone else

but we were too much to say Schism Joe

was already a senator and I was the

Navy’s liaison officer to the Senate my

duties included as he mentioned earlier

escorting Senate delegations on the

overseas trips and in that capacity I

supervised the delegations luggage which

could require now and again when no one

of lower rank was available for the job

that I carry someone else once or twice

that turned out to be the young senator

from Delaware I presented it ever since

Joe has heard me joke about that before

I hope he is heard to my profession of

gratitude for his friendship and love

these many years it’s meant a lot to me

we we served in the Senate together for

over 20 years during some eventful times

as we passed from young men to the

fossils who appear before you this

evening

we didn’t always agree on the issues we

often argued sometimes passionately but

we believed in each other’s patriotism

and the sincerity of each other’s

convictions we believed in the

institution we were privileged to serve

in we believed in our mutual

responsibility to help make the place

work and to cooperate in finding

solutions to our country’s problems we

believed in our country and in our

country’s indispensability to

international peace and stability and

the progress of humanity

and through it all whether we argued or

green Joe was good company you all know

he is good with the company so thank you

old friend for your company and your

service to America thank you to to the

National Constitution Center and

everyone associated with it for this

award thank you for that video and for

all the too generous complements paid to

me this evening I’m aware of the

prestigious company the Liberty mental

places gene I’m humbled by and I’ll try

my best not to prove too unworthy of it

some years ago I was present at an event

where an earlier Liberty medal recipient

spoke about America’s values and the

sacrifices made for them it was 1991 and

I was attending a ceremony commemorating

the 50th anniversary of the attack on

Pearl Harbor the World War two veteran

message the wool patriot and goodly man

President George Herbert Walker Bush

gave a moving speech at the USS Arizona

Memorial I remember it very well

his voice is consistent with emotion as

he neared the end of his redis I imagine

he was thinking not only of the brave

Americans who lost their lives on

December 7th 1941 but of the friends he

had served with in lost in the Pacific

where he where he had been the named

least youngest aviator look at the water

here clear and quiet he directed one day

what now seems another lifetime it wraps

in Gravatar

around the finest sons any new she could

ever have and it and carry him to a

better world he could barely get out the

lash line they God bless them and may

God bless america the most one person on

earth

the most wondrous land on earth Andy

I’ve had the good fortune of 60 years of

service to this wondrous land it’s not

perfect service to be sure and there

were probably times when the country

might have benefited a little less my

help but I tried to deserve the

privilege as best I can and I’ve been

repaid a thousand times over with

adventures with good company with the

satisfaction of serving something they

were important than myself a being a

player in the extraordinary story of

America and I am so grateful what a

privilege it is to serve this was a

boisterous brawling and temperance

driving a daring beautiful doubtful

brave magazine magnificent country with

all our flaws all our mistakes with all

the frail limbs of human nature as much

on display as our virtues with all the

rancor and anger of our politics we are

blessed we are living in the land of the

free the land where anything is possible

the land and the immigrants dream the

land of the story past forgotten in the

rest of the imagined future the land of

repairs can reinvent itself the land

where a person can escape the

consequences of a self-centered youth

and know the satisfaction of sacrificing

for an ideal the land where you can go

from English will baying

to a noble cause and from the bottom of

your class to your party’s nomination

for

president

[Applause]

we are blessed and we’ve been a blessing

to humanity in turn the International

Quarter we helped build from the ashes

of World War and that we listened to

this day has liberated more people from

tyranny and poverty than ever before in

history this is wondrous land

this wondrous land has shared its

treasures and ideals and shed the blood

of its finest Patriots to help another

to help make another better world and as

we did so we made our own civilization

more just freer more accomplished and

prosperous than the America that existed

when I watched my father go off to war

on December 7th 1941 to fear the world

we have organized and led to

three-quarters of a century to abandon

the ideals we have advanced around the

globe to refuse the obligations of

international leadership and our duty to

remain the last best hope of Earth for

the sake of some half-baked spurious

nationalism cooked up by people who

would rather find escapes and solve

problems

this is he says unpatriotic is an

attachment to any other tire dogma of

the past that Americans consigned to the

Hg the ash heap of history we live in a

land made of ideals not blood and soil

we are the custodians of those ideals at

home and their champion abroad we’ve

done great good in the world that

leadership has had its costs but we have

become incomparably powerful and wealthy

as we did it we have a moral obligation

to continue in our just cause and we

would bring wouldn’t shame on ourselves

if we dump

we will not thrive in a world where our

leadership and ideals are absent

we wouldn’t deserve to I’m the luckiest

guy on earth I have served America’s

caused the cause of our security and the

security of our friends the cause of

freedom and equal justice all my adult

life I haven’t always served it well I

haven’t even always appreciated what I

was serving but among a few

compensations of old age is the acuity

of hindsight I see now that I was part

of something important that drew me

along in its wake even when I was

diverted by other interests I was

knowingly or not along for the ride as

America made the future better than the

past and I’ve enjoyed every single day

of it the good ones and the not so good

ones I’ve been inspired by the service

of better Patriots of me I’ve seen

Americans from exact rifice ‘as for our

country and their causes and for people

who were strangers to them but for our

common humanity sacrifices that were

much harder than the service ever has to

me and I’ve seen what they’ve done the

lights they free from tyranny and

injustice the whole encouraged the

dreams they’ve made achievable may God

bless them may God bless america and

give us the strength and the wisdom and

the generosity and compassion to do our

duty for this wondrous land and for the

world that counts on us with all its

suffering endanger the world still looks

to the example and leadership of America

to become another better place what a

greater cause could anyone ever serve

thank you again for this honor

I’ll treasure

[Applause]