VA’s national cemetery system is far more expansive in terms of interments and properties than the three other federal agencies with similar responsibilities—Department of Army (DA), American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), and National Park Service (NPS). National shrines in the VA system are kept at the highest standards and visited by the public and distinguished visitors regularly. Yet, surprisingly, over the 160 years that many VA cemeteries have existed, U.S. presidents have rarely delivered speeches on these hallowed grounds. There a few documented instances in the late nineteenth century and a storm canceled Barack Obama’s planned 2010 Memorial Day speech at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Illinois. And while VA cemeteries display a plaque bearing the text of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, that famous piece of presidential oratory was delivered in what is now an NPS national cemetery. Otherwise, U.S. presidents have favored DA’s Arlington National Cemetery as a backdrop for Memorial and Veterans Day speeches and other special observances.
The scarcity of presidential appearances at VA cemeteries makes President William J. Clinton’s speech at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, more popularly known as the Punchbowl, on September 2, 1995, particularly noteworthy. Clinton visited the Punchbowl on V-J or Victory over Japan Day as part of a three-day commemoration celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II. Born in 1946, Clinton himself made history in 1992 when he became the first member of the post-WWII generation to be elected president. In its own way, the event at the Punchbowl marked the changing of an era.
Clinton’s 17-minute remarks were the last of an hour-long ceremony held on the steps of the ABMC’s Honolulu Memorial within the cemetery, described by VA Secretary Jesse Brown as a “vast and beautiful place of rest, like a cradle dropped from heaven [that] gently holds those who paid the ultimate sacrifice.” A crowd of some 6,500 attended , many of them WWII Veterans. They began gathering among the 33,000 graves decorated with American flags as early as 5 a.m. in a drizzling rain. In his address, Clinton focused on the sacrifices of the WWII generation and progress they made possible for American society:
It is only fitting that here in the middle of the ocean, whose name means peace, the place where WWII began and ended for America, that we mark the wars’ end and honor the men and women who saved our world. We owe it to the World War II generation to remember, but we owe them more. For just as freedom has its price, it also has its purpose. To enable all people to live up to their God given potential and to continue the march of human progress.
Toward the end of the speech, President Clinton requested that all WWII Veterans in the audience stand or wave a hand to be recognized. The camera panned across the crowd as hundreds rose to their feet, many wearing the medals they had earned for their service, and the drumbeat of applause sounded in the air. One of the Veterans so honored, Navy Captain Jim Daniels III, who figured prominently in Clinton’s speech, died nine years later and was laid to rest in that very cemetery, in Section CT4-Q, Row 100, Site 153.
View the full ceremony on C-SPAN. President Clinton’s remarks begin at 25:06 and conclude at 41:30.
Note: The WWII generation is rapidly disappearing. The number of Veterans who served in the war has fallen from around one million in 2015 to 240,000 in 2022.
By Richard Hulver, Ph.D.
Historian, National Cemetery Administration
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History of VA in 100 Objects
Object 80: LUKE/DEKA Prosthetic Arm
In the 19th century, the federal government left the manufacture and distribution of prosthetic limbs for disabled Veterans to private enterprise. The experience of fighting two world wars in the first half of the 20th century led to a reversal in this policy.
In the interwar era, first the Veterans Bureau and then the Veterans Administration assumed responsibility for providing replacement limbs and medical care to Veterans.
In recent decades, another federal agency, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), has joined VA as a supporter of cutting-edge research into artificial limb technology. DARPA’s efforts were spurred by the spike in traumatic injuries resulting from the emergence of improvised explosive devices as the insurgent’s weapon of choice in Iraq in 2003-04.
Out of that effort came the LUKE/DEKA prosthetic limb, named after the main character from "Star Wars."
History of VA in 100 Objects
Object 79: VA Study of Former Prisoners of War
American prisoners of war from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam faced starvation, torture, forced labor, and other abuses at the hands of their captors. For those that returned home, their experiences in captivity often had long-lasting impacts on their physical and mental health. Over the decades, the U.S. government sought to address their specific needs through legislation conferring special benefits on former prisoners of war.
In 1978, five years after the United States withdrew the last of its combat troops from South Vietnam, Congress mandated VA carry out a thorough study of the disability and medical needs of former prisoners of war. In consultation with the Secretary of Defense, VA completed the study in 14 months and published its findings in early 1980. Like previous investigations in the 1950s, the study confirmed that former prisoners of war had higher rates of service-connected disabilities.
History of VA in 100 Objects
Object 78: French Cross at Cypress Hills National Cemetery in Brooklyn
In the waning days of World War I, French sailors from three visiting allied warships marched through New York in a Liberty Loan Parade. The timing was unfortunate as the second wave of the influenza pandemic was spreading in the U.S. By January, 25 of French sailors died from the virus.
These men were later buried at the Cypress Hills National Cemetery and later a 12-foot granite cross monument, the French Cross, was dedicated in 1920 on Armistice Day. This event later influenced changes to burial laws that opened up availability of allied service members and U.S. citizens who served in foreign armies in the war against Germany and Austrian empires.
