Retired Captain Paul Bucha, U.S. Military Academy Class of 1965 and Medal of Honor recipient, spoke to roughly 1,300 new cadets July 6 at Robinson Auditorium. When Bucha walked to the podium, he immediately began to pace the stage to talk to the cadets, keeping them at ease with humor, but humor with a purpose. “Tonight is a special night for you to understand what we, and people like me expect from you. It’s the result I want you to think about and you can’t do that all in class,” Bucha said. “The worst thing that can happen to you when you are attending a speech is when that one on stage starts looking for someone.”
“The first is honor,” Bucha said. “Upon which the other four rest and without honor there is no leadership. Honor is the willingness to trust and with willingness to trust is the willingness to fight. Honor is something that you work at. You are required to become a leader based on honor. That is where character comes from. When you go to war there is no person in the world who can see through BS more than an 18-year-old snuffy sitting on a rock smoking a cigarette.”
“You have to have humility,” Bucha added. “God forbid that you don’t have to do what I had to do. To write 10 letters home to mothers and fathers that their sons died under my command. But this is something you may have to do on your first command.” Bucha today still suppressed tears remembering the fallen in his unit. Read More