Bush Cites Democracy’s Spread in Veterans Day Observance

President Bush, leading the nation’s Veterans Day observances, placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns on Monday and said victory in the Gulf War had kindled an overdue respect for Vietnam veterans that is “good for the nation’s soul.”

Bush pledged that the United States would “always be a force for peace in the world.”

With his topcoat drawn tight against a chilling wind, Bush said at the annual ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery that Desert Storm veterans “freed a captive nation and set America free by renewing our faith in ourselves.”

The President promised that the nation would “never forget the POWs and the MIAs yet to be accounted for” from the Vietnam War.

Across the Potomac River in Washington, several thousand people visited the Vietnam Memorial for brief ceremonies in which eight names of Americans whose deaths were attributed to the war were added to the wall--making 58,183 in all.

At Arlington, Bush said the ideals of democracy and freedom that Americans have fought to defend are taking root around the world.

“In the Western Hemisphere, 98% of the people now live in democracies. In Africa, people line up to vote as one-man states collapse. Europeans, East and West, unite in ways never thought possible,” Bush said.

“Age-old enemies of the Middle East finally sit face to face to seek an end to their bitter strife. The Soviet Union strives to throw off the dead hand of communism, and the time is coming when those last few totalitarian states will fade into historical oblivion.”

In Indianapolis, meanwhile, the national commander of the Disabled Veterans of America said the government should do more than just praise war veterans. At the Indiana War Memorial, Cleveland Jordan said that medical and educational services are being cut back or threatened.

In New York, 97 survivors of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor a half-century ago were honored with medals in a ceremony that included airplanes, model warships and other memorabilia. There was also a 15-block parade down 5th Avenue to a wreath-laying ceremony honoring the service of Americans in all wars.