Obama honors fallen warriors

‘We must do more,’ he says

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/RICK MCFARLAND --05/26/14--  Paul W. Kimbrough, Jr., of Springdale, talks to his son Paul W. Kimbrough III, 18 months, at the grave of Lt. Col. Paul W. Kimbrough, Sr., his father and the boys grandfather after a Memorial Day Ceremony at the Arkansas State Veterans' Cemetery in North Little Rock Monday. The elder Kimbrough died of an illness while serving in Afghanistan on Oct. 3, 2003. He also served in the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/RICK MCFARLAND --05/26/14-- Paul W. Kimbrough, Jr., of Springdale, talks to his son Paul W. Kimbrough III, 18 months, at the grave of Lt. Col. Paul W. Kimbrough, Sr., his father and the boys grandfather after a Memorial Day Ceremony at the Arkansas State Veterans' Cemetery in North Little Rock Monday. The elder Kimbrough died of an illness while serving in Afghanistan on Oct. 3, 2003. He also served in the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars.

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama, just back from a surprise visit to the troops in Afghanistan, honored America's fallen warriors in a solemn Memorial Day ceremony Monday and acknowledged the need to confront the widening scandal at the nation's veterans hospitals.

Obama, aided by a soldier in uniform, laid a large wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns a few minutes after 11 a.m. Monday. The president adjusted the wreath, stepped back and bowed his head in silence for a few moments. Afterward, an Army bugler played taps.

Later in the morning, Obama spoke at a ceremony in the Arlington National Cemetery's Memorial Amphitheater.

"As we've been reminded in recent days, we must do more to keep faith with our veterans and their families to make sure they get the care and benefits and opportunities that they've earned and that they deserve," Obama said to a military audience.

"These Americans have done their duty," the president said, as the crowd broke out in applause. "They ask nothing more than that our country does ours, now and for decades to come."

In his speech, Obama singled out relatives of those lost in war -- including a woman who waited 63 years for her husband's remains to be located in Korea and a group of young siblings sitting with first lady Michelle Obama.

"Your parents' bravery lives on in you," Obama said. "You will never walk alone. Your country will be here to help you grow up into the men and women your parents always knew you would be."

Before the ceremony, a large number of people were turned away from the cemetery's entrances by security personnel who said that the event was full. Jennifer Lynch, a spokesman for the cemetery, said afterward that the gates had been closed only briefly to secure the area for Obama's arrival.

"They lock it down for security purposes," Lynch said. She said the cemetery was reopened to visitors and remains open.

The secretary of veterans affairs, Eric Shinseki, was among those listening to Obama. But the president, unlike other officials who spoke before him, did not acknowledge Shinseki's presence. Last week, Obama summoned Shinseki to the Oval Office and threatened to punish anyone found guilty of wrongdoing at the veterans hospitals.

The president, however, did not explicitly say more Monday about the scandal, in which the hospitals have been accused of doctoring patient records to disguise long waiting times for treatment. Obama has dispatched his deputy chief of staff, Rob Nabors, to the Veterans Affairs Department to investigate.

Having just returned from a 33-hour trip to Afghanistan -- one that included a pep rally with U.S. troops at Bagram Air Field, north of Kabul, but no meeting with President Hamid Karzai -- Obama celebrated the end of the 13-year war there.

"Because of their profound sacrifice and because of the progress they have made, we're at a pivotal moment: Our troops are coming home," Obama said, drawing the biggest applause of his speech. "By the end of this year, our war in Afghanistan will finally come to an end.

"Yesterday at Bagram and today at Arlington, we pay tribute to the nearly 2,200 American patriots who made the ultimate sacrifice in Afghanistan," he said. "We will honor them always."

On Wednesday, the president will deliver the commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Officials said he would lay out a detailed blueprint for U.S. foreign policy in the post-Iraq, post-Afghanistan era.

On Sunday, speaking to troops in a hangar at Bagram, Obama said the United States still wanted a long-term security agreement with Afghanistan, a potential sign that he has ruled out withdrawing all U.S. troops after 2014, despite repeated warnings from other administration officials that the United States might do so.

At Arlington, Obama was joined by first lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, at the solemn ceremony across the Potomac River from the White House. The remembrance was for the war heroes of yesteryear as well as servicemen stationed around the world. It was carried out in idyllic weather under cloudless skies and a brilliant sunshine.

Preceding Obama to the microphone, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, a military veteran, noted this year's remembrance came with the approaching 70th anniversary of America's D-Day landing in Normandy, France. And Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said "America's sons and daughters are still out there today on the frontiers of our common defense."

The Arlington remembrance was duplicated in villages, towns, cities and counties across the country. There was a holiday weekend reunion of some of the last surviving members of the Tuskegee Airmen in upstate New York. More than 3,000 volunteers placed flags at the graves of 120,000 veterans at the Florida National Cemetery. And in Mississippi, the annual Vicksburg Memorial Day parade was being accompanied by a wreath-laying ceremony at Vicksburg National Cemetery.

Information for this article was contributed by Mark Landler of The New York Times; by David A. Fahrenthold and Antonio Olivo of The Washington Post; and by Pete Yost of The Associated Press.

A Section on 05/27/2014

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