It is a great personal honor for me to be here today to take part in a ceremony that is unique in American history. Never before has a full Division been cited by the War Department in the name of the President, for gallantry in action. This day marks the beginning of a new tradition in the American Army. With that tradition, therefore, will always be associated the name of the 101st Airborne Division and of Bastogne.

Yet you men, because you are soldiers of proved valor and or experience, would be the last to claim that you are the bravest and the best. All the way from where the Marines are fighting on Iwo Jima, through the Philippines and southeast Asia, on through the Mediterranean and along this great front, and on the Russian frontiers, are going forward day by day those battles sustained by the valor of you and the other Allied units that are beating this enemy to his knees. They are proving once and for all that dictatorship cannot produce better soldiers than can aroused democracy. In many of those actions are units that have performed with unexcelled brilliance.

So far as I know, there may be many among you that would not rate Bastogne as your bitterest battle. Yet it is entirely fitting and appropriate that you should be cited for that particular battle. It happened to be one of those occasions when the position itself was of the utmost importance to the Allied forces. You, in reserve, were hurried forward and told to hold that position. All the elements of drama, of battle drama, were there. You were cut off, you were surrounded. Only valor, complete self-confidence in yourselves and in your leaders, a knowledge that you were well trained, only the determination to win could sustain soldiers under those conditions. You were given a marvelous opportunity, and you met every test.

Therefore, you become a fitting symbol on which the United Nations, all the citizens of the United Nations, can say to their soldiers today, “We are proud of you,” as it is my great privilege to say to you here today, to the 101st Division and all its attached units, “I am awfully proud of you.”

With this great honor goes also a certain responsibility. Just as you are the beginning of a new tradition, you must realize, each of you, that from now on, the spotlight will beat on you with particular brilliance. Whenever you say you are a soldier of the 101st Division, everybody, whether it’s on the street in the city or in the front line, will expect unusual conduct of you. I know that you will meet every test of the future like you met at Bastogne.

Good luck and God be with each of you.