We are honored to have had the opportunity to serve our country under difficult circumstances. We are profoundly grateful to our Commander-in-Chief and to our nation for this day. God bless America.

Our coin bears the inscription: In God We Trust. And our Bible reassures us: The Lord is just and merciful. With the Lord thence our protector, whom or what shall we fear?

I prayed. God became more than faith. He became knowledge, and I appealed to him. Then I became ashamed. Why hadn't I embraced him so thoroughly before?

Although I had lived a far from perfect life, my heart and soul belonged to God, country, and family long before the Navy got hold of me.

The family is the engine that drives civilization. Throughout history, those cultures that have failed to found their rules and attitudes of society on the central importance of the family unit have decayed and disintegrated.

The nation is only as strong as the collective strength of its individuals.

My principal battle with the North Vietnamese was a moral one, and prayer was my prime source of strength.