Our policy is simple: We are not going to betray our friends, reward the enemies of freedom, or permit fear and retreat to become American policies — especially in this hemisphere. None of the four wars in my lifetime came about because we were too strong.

I don't know what I expected, but my first morning in the Oval Office had a surprising ring of familiarity to it. It reminded me a lot of my job as governor.

I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.

Throughout America today, we honor the dead of our wars. We recall their valor and their sacrifices. We remember they gave their lives so that others might live.

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.

There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.

There are simple answers to the nation's problems, but not easy ones.