Remarks at the Dedication of the AMVETS National Headquarters Building.

Mr. Speaker, Commander Hall, Senator Yarborough, Congressman Dorn, Members of the Congress, my friends the veterans of the United States, ladies and gentlemen:

Last week I met for the first time in the White House the son of a friend of mine-an Army colonel--who died in 1942 when enemy fire brought down his plane in the Pacific. A stroke of fate had kept me from boarding the same aircraft with him on that day, June 9, 1942, in New Guinea.

As I shook hands in the State Dining Room with the Army captain who is now an instructor at West Point, and who was only 6 years old when his father--that colonel-perished, I was vividly reminded of how easily we forget that others have died in our place. But they have--as an occasion such as this reminds us.

We have come here this morning to dedicate a building they have already dedicated for us. We ought to ask ourselves: What obligation do we have to their sacrifice? What must we do to guarantee that they did not die and they did not suffer without reason.

For my part, I think I know.

It is to hasten the day when war is no longer the arbiter among nations.

The most cruel irony I know is that men require force to serve peace.

Three times this century others have chosen war, forcing us to choose the same course. Men went off to seek peace by dying for it.

They did not want to die. They were young and they were brave and they were full of life and they had things to do. But they did die--because some men thought war was the way to take over part of this world.

The whole world could watch the Kaiser's troops marching across Belgium. The whole world could see Hitler's tanks sweeping through Poland. And the whole world could see the Communist army of North Korea hammering south toward Seoul.

In each case, aggression was open, was obvious, and was swift.

In each case, the valor of helped stop in their tracks the would-be conquerors.

And what they achieved was not achieved in vain. Every nation from the Irish Sea to the Sea of Japan owes a great deal to these Americans who died in battle for their freedom and for ours.

But that great final hope was not realized. Peace came, but it was not kept. And now some have chosen another form of war to take what belonged to others. They turned to aggression by infiltration and by terror.

This kind of aggression is like poisoning a well, drop by drop, until the water becomes fatal to those who drink it. It is a grenade that is thrown from a rooftop into a crowded marketplace. It is a time-bomb that is put off where they gather to get a bus ride home. It is a land mine planted on a neighborhood path, or a civilian leader murdered, or a teacher kidnaped.

But it is war all the same. And if it succeeds where open aggression has failed, then men in our time will not turn from war as the means to their end.

They will always be tempted to steal through the back door what they could not gain by storming the front door.

And my fellow Americans, this is why our men in Vietnam are heirs to the hopes of those who crossed the oceans in two other wars, and those who went to Korea to prove that aggression just does not pay and does not work.

They are brave men. This afternoon in another part of the country I will be awarding medals to a good number of them for the courage that they have demonstrated in battle. I want to go and see them and talk to them and let them know how important they are to the promise of a decent and a peaceful world.

Hundreds of thousands of their fellow Americans have died to bring us to the point where nations will look for other ways than war to settle their differences. If we succeed in meeting this challenge of force, it may be that the veterans of Vietnam will be the last veterans to ever use this building.

Last Monday afternoon at the invitation of Secretary and Mrs. McNamara, Mrs. Johnson and I visited with several hundred of our boys who have just come back from Vietnam and who are now in the hospitals at Bethesda and Walter Reed and other places in this area. We were both moved by their youth and by the strength in their eyes. Some were on crutches; others were in wheelchairs. Some were still suffering from shock, others were missing a leg or an arm.

I remembered the story of the young American captured by the Communists in Korea. He was asked his opinion of General Marshall. "General George C. Marshall," he replied, "is a great American soldier." He was quickly beaten to the ground. Then his captors forced him to stand up again--and once more he was asked: "Now what do you think of General Marshall?" Once more he looked them in the eye and gave the same reply, "General George C. Marshall is a great American soldier." This time no reaction came--no blow was struck. They had tested his courage; they knew what kind of a man this soldier was.

As Mrs. Johnson and I left the ship and said goodby to those wounded veterans, she leaned over and whispered to me: "You only have to be with them a few minutes and you know what real courage is."

So I am very proud to be here with you this morning. I appreciate the honor that you have given me by placing this bust in this building. But I accept it not as a tribute to me. I accept it as Commander in Chief of men who really know what courage is.