Pentagon Salutes an Old Soldier--Barry Goldwater

Although he retired years ago as a major general in the Air Force Reserve, Sen. Barry Goldwater was formally mustered out and given a ceremonial farewell Wednesday by the nation’s top military leaders.

The Pentagon staged the armed forces salute to the Arizona Republican on the parade ground in front of the River Entrance to the five-sided building, erected during World War II, when Goldwater served in the Army infantry.

Amid pomp and ceremony, Goldwater was lauded by Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, Adm. William J. Crowe, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the secretaries of the Navy, Army and Air Force for a career that began as a soldier and aviator in World War II and is now ending after 30 years in the Senate.

The 77-year-old Goldwater, visibly moved by the tribute, received the top civilian award of each service and the Defense Department. He said it was “the most memorable day of my life.”

Goldwater appeared to be fighting back tears as he recalled the day more than 60 years ago “when I first put on a uniform at a military school.” He was taught, Goldwater added, “about the honor of wearing the uniform and being forever prideful of it.”

“I maintain . . . that the way to stay at peace in this world is to have a force so competent, so skilled and so strong that no other country or combination of countries will ever dare do anything to upset us,” he said. “And I am proud to stand here today . . . and say that never in my life have I known such a high quality of enlisted men and officers as we have now.”

Walks With Cane

Goldwater, who walked slowly with a cane but ramrod straight, received a 17-gun salute from four cannons pointing over the Potomac River toward the Capitol, in which he worked for three decades.

At another point in the ceremony, as he sought to speak over the roar of jets from nearby National Airport, the retiring senator broke up the crowd by looking skyward and saying: “I love those damn things, but they ought to quit for a while.”

Goldwater retired as a major general in the Air Force Reserve in 1967. He continued flying, and in his life he has piloted more than 150 types of planes.

He was Arizona National Guard chief of staff from the time it was organized after World War II until 1952.

Weinberger praised Goldwater, who ran unsuccessfully for President in 1964, as the scion of American conservative ideology whose prophecies in the 1960s have come true with the country’s swing to the right in the Reagan era.

“The unorthodox opinions of the conscience of American conservatism have now taken root and they are embraced by all except the most unreconstructed liberal,” he said. “I really have to say today that extremism in praise of Barry Goldwater is no vice because it is true.

Persistent Dedication

“Few public figures of our time have such a reputation for persistent and painstaking dedication for the common good,” Weinberger said.

After calling him a “prophet,” Weinberger said, “Barry Goldwater was right about the war in Vietnam. We began by questioning that war. We ended by questioning ourselves. Clear goals and a means to achieve those goals must guide the use of force by this nation.”

Weinberger said Goldwater had taught that America should not get involved in wars it does not intend to win, that government regulation can lead to regimentation and that, “despite all her faults and shortcomings, it is perfectly all right to love America.”