By Karen Parrish
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, May 11, 2014 – Wearing the dark blue jacket of
his dress uniform, surrounded by fresh-faced, scrubbed and gowned graduates on
a lush green morning campus in North Carolina, Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey
today painted a vivid picture of a faraway reality.
“It’s sunset right now in Afghanistan,” he said. “Thousands
of young men and women your age are either completing their day’s work or just
about to begin it. They do what they do because they trust each other; because
they sense that they should give something back because of the opportunities
that they enjoy in this country.”
So they put on their rucksacks, he said, and they march out
of their base camps and into an uncertain future.
“That’s their way of making it matter,” he said.
Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave a
call-to-action speech emphasizing leadership, partnership, and responsibility
today to graduates of North Carolina’s Duke University.
“It’s terrific to see so many international students among
the student body,” he said. “I trust, I hope, I expect that you’ve formed
relationships and friendships that will help us all manage an increasingly
complex, and in some cases dangerous, world.”
Dempsey noted that during pre-commencement events yesterday,
“I was privileged, really, to welcome 11 newly commissioned ensigns and
lieutenants into the armed forces, our next generation of military leaders.” He
invited the new service members -- uniformed for the ceremony -- to stand, then
led a round of applause for them.
“And let’s not forget today’s Mother’s Day,” the general
said. “So I also salute those of you who have nursed, nudged, nurtured, and
nervously watched these terrific young men and women grow. You’ll still watch
them nervously, but thanks for what you’ve done to bring them to this point in
their lives.”
Dempsey noted he last stood in Duke’s Wallace Wade Stadium
when he received his master’s degree in English in 1984, when he was a captain
in the Army. He learned some things during his time at the acclaimed
university, Dempsey said.
“As the product of a Catholic education and West Point, I’d
actually never had to dress myself,” he said. Even tougher challenges arose, he
continued, and “there were moments I wasn’t sure I would make it through Duke.
But instinctively, I knew I had to keep trying and I had to keep learning.”
The general said that even then, he had a sense that his
chosen profession might lead him to an intersection with history.
“And history did find me, about 20 years after I left this
beautiful campus,” he said.
Dempsey said that nearly 40 years into a military career
that has arced from the Cold War to counter-terrorism and the cyber domain, “Of
course I’m worried about the future.”
He worries about big nations becoming more aggressive;
little nations developing weapons of mass destruction; religious extremism “and
what it creates,” the chairman said.
Dempsey noted that his worries also include “the collapse of
governance along in the Mideast and North Africa; about criminal networks that
move drugs and illegal immigrants and arms to and across our borders.
“I worry about a pervasive and growing weakness in national
and international institutions and structures that have for decades held
together our sense of order and well-being,” Dempsey continued. “And yet, when
I look carefully and thoughtfully at all of this, I see more opportunity than
vulnerability. I remain encouraged.”
He draws hope not least from “the young men and women that I
find poised to lead us,” he added.
People will have to think, not bludgeon, their way into the
future, the general said. There will be more options, but also more ambiguity,
in “dealing with the challenges we face.”
“You will need to find, fix and remain true to your moral
compass, or you’ll find yourself paralyzed,” he cautioned the graduates. “… You
have to find your own way. You leave Duke with the intellectual tools to
accomplish whatever lies ahead of you. But that’s only half of what you need,
and only you can measure the other half.”
Dempsey told the graduates they have crossed the academic
goal line.
“You’ve hit it out of the park,” he said. “You’ve … thrown
it down with a vengeance. But what’s in your heart?”
Dempsey said his real worry is that they and some of their
peers across the country won’t confront that question.
“You’ll quickly become too busy to give each moment the
value it deserves,” said the 18th chairman, who has spent countless weekend
days and holidays playing with, singing to and just spending time with the
surviving children and families of fallen service members.
“Too driven to lead personally,” he continued. “Too
confident to be inquisitive, too certain to be approachable. I had a mentor
suggest to me once that from time to time, I ought to ask myself a very simple
question: When is the last time I allowed someone to change my mind about
something?”
The more responsibility a person has, Dempsey said, the more
important that question becomes. Standing in sunlight on a peaceful green
campus, surrounded by academic robes and the traditions of the ivory tower,
Dempsey evoked the stern ethos of World War II recruiting posters.
“Let me be clear: America needs you,” the chairman said. “It
needs each of you, if it hopes to remain what it is and what it needs to be. We
are and have it within us to remain exceptional. But you’ve got to make this
wonderful education you’ve just consumed matter.”
Dempsey recounted a fact of his daily life that he speaks of
often. On his desk in the Pentagon, he said, sits a small wooden box filled
with 129 laminated cards, each bearing the photograph of one of the 129 service
members who died under his command in Baghdad in 2003-2004.
“On that box in the Pentagon, on my desk, are three simple
words: Make it Matter,” he said.
Dempsey told Duke graduates his hope for them is that they
believe in themselves “as much as those sitting up here, and those sitting
around you, believe in you.”
The nation’s senior military officer said he also hopes they
“genuinely believe in the greatness and the exceptionalism of this country.”
He advised them, “Encourage it. Criticize it. Participate in
it. But above all, believe in it.”
America needs leaders of consequence, he said. “No
mediocrity, no bystanders, no ambivalence,” Dempsey urged. “ … Make it matter.”
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