Remarks to Fellow Patients in the Naval Hospital, Bethesda, Maryland.

I AM SORRY you are here, but there are a good many folks that are living better and enjoying freedom because you are. And I am glad that the citizens of this country are made up of men like you.

I feel like one of the fellow casualties--I have been out of circulation for a few days and kind of sliced up a little myself, but I have gone through nothing like what you have gone through.

The thing, though, that made me able to take what I did take, and with my chin up, was the knowledge that men like you are willing to do what you did for your country. I know that as far as you are concerned, you did it because that is what your duty was and what you ought to do, and what is right. But it does make your families and your countrymen--and particularly your President--mighty proud that we produce fellows like you in this country.

As long as we have the system of government we have, and as long as we have the courage and the determination, the dedication, the love of country and flag that we have, and fellows like you, we are going to continue to produce a Nation like this. Whenever we cease to love it, and whenever we cease to be willing to die for it, and whenever we are willing to throw in the towel, why then some other society will come along and take us over.

But I know some of you must think that you got a bad break. And you have. But because of what you have done there are 3 billion people in the world that will get a better break, and their kids will live better, be happier, stronger, better educated, and eat more food, and have more freedom and more liberty.

I just can't sum up in any words of mine how proud I am of the Marines, the Navy, the Army, the Air Force, and the Coast Guard, and the fellows that never look back. And when I feel pretty blue at night, and I issue the orders that you carry out, I do it with a heavy heart. But I never see one of your performances that I am not proud of you, and I wanted to come and tell you that before I checked out.

Good luck to you. Tell all your families-your wives, your children, your mothers, and your fathers--that the President of your country is mighty proud of you.

I want to thank all the doctors, and the nurses, and the aides in this wonderful hospital for doing the best they can to make us all comfortable. They have been certainly wonderful to me and I hope they have been to you.