Quantcast
Channel: USMA & Cadet News
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 7685

PHOTOS: GRADUATION 2013

0
0

HagelRain, wind, and temperatures in the low 50s could not dampen nor chill the spirit of the 1,007 graduates from the Class of 2013, who got their diplomas and were commissioned as second lieutenants on Saturday. However, relatives and friends of the graduates gave Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, the 2013 Graduation Speaker, a loud round of applause when he opened his remarks by saying, “I am not unaware, especially on a rainy day, that graduates and their guests prize brevity.” Hagel used his speech to remind graduates of their “awesome responsibility” to lead soldiers and told stories relating to two USMA graduates, Dwight D. Eisenhower ’15 and Robert George Keats ’65, to impart lessons of leadership. “The most important part of leadership is taking responsibility for your actions and decisions,” Hagel said. He then repeated Eisenhower’s handwritten note on the eve of D-Day in which the general assumed sole responsibility in the event that the invasion of Normandy failed. “That is accountability,” Hagel told the graduates. Hagel concluded his speech by informing the graduates about Keats, who was killed ten days after assuming command of Bravo Co. of the 2-47 9th Infantry Division, the unit in which Hagel served during the Vietnam War. A letter from Keats’s days as a cadet was read at his funeral on the ground of the West Point Cemetery. It said, “The world can only be saved by people striving for the ideal.” Hagel tied Keats’s sentiment to the Class of 2013’s motto: “Defending the Dream.” “You chose to be a soldier at a very defining time in our Nation’s history; you too are fighting for an ideal,” Hagel said, “America needs you and it is counting on you to uphold this ideal.” Good Luck Class of 2013!

See photos


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 7685

Latest Images

Trending Articles



Latest Images