On this solemn Memorial Day, President Donald J. Trump gathered with Gold Star Families, servicemembers, and members of his administration at Arlington National Cemetery to honor the fallen heroes who have safeguarded our nation’s freedom.
Key Highlights:
- “In every hour of peril and every moment of crisis, American warriors have left behind the blessings of home and family to answer their nation’s call. They’ve offered all that they had within them and given their last breaths to each and every one of us — that we might live safe and breathe free.” Watch
- “The sacrifice that they made was not merely for a single battle, a long-ago victory, or a fleeting triumph decades or centuries past. Their sacrifice was for today, tomorrow, and every morning thereafter.” Watch
- “Every child that lives in peace, every home that is filled with joy and love, every day the Republic stands, is only possible because of those who did what had to be done when duty called … Our debt to them is eternal and it does not diminish with time; it only grows and grows and grows with each passing year. The greatest monument to their courage is not carved in marble or cast in bronze — it’s all around us, an American nation 325 million strong, which will soon be greater than it has ever been before.” Watch
- “Great poets have written that it’s love which moves the sun and the stars. But here on the sacred soil — right where we are — we’re reminded that it’s love which moves the course of history, and moves it always toward freedom. Always.” Watch
- “From Bunker Hill to Bastogne to Cantigny to Coral Sea, from Gettysburg to Guadalcanal, and Concord to Kabul, America’s best and America’s bravest have fought, bled, and died so that we could pick up the torch of liberty, raise it high, high, high, and carry it onward.” Watch
- “In every generation since, at Trenton and Yorktown, at Vicksburg and Shiloh, and in faraway places with names like Château-Thierry, Anzio, Iwo Jima, Khe Sanh, Kandahar … They plunged into the crucible of battle, stormed into the fires of hell, charged into the valley of death, and rose into the arms of angels.” Watch
- Vice President JD Vance: “Consider the sum of all the moments that make a good life, and now appreciate how countless strangers, people most of you never met, gave up those moments in their own life so that we could enjoy them in ours, and that is what Memorial Day is all about … To them, we owe everything — and today, in the peace they bequeathed to us, we honor them.” Watch
- Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth: “This is the story of the unknown — the story of the fallen soldier who we have gathered today to honor. It is the story of the American warrior. He answered the call, fought, and died for this Republic; the ultimate sacrifice of a free people.” Watch
- Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine: “It’s in the lives of the fallen and their families that we’re left a standard to live by — a charge for us all to keep, a charge to carry the torch forward with duty, courage, and love of country.” Watch
