WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama paid tribute Monday to the men and women who have died defending America, singling out Vietnam veterans as an under appreciated and sometimes maligned group of war heroes and vowing that “it will not happen again.”
“You were sometimes blamed for the misdeeds of a few,” Obama said at the Vietnam War Memorial. “You came home and were sometimes denigrated when you should have been celebrated. It was a national shame, a disgrace that should have never happened.”
“Even though some Americans turned their backs on you, you never turned your back on America,” Obama said.
Marking Memorial Day at both the black-granite wall honoring more than 58,000 soldiers who died in the Vietnam War and earlier at Arlington National Cemetery across the Potomac River from the capital, Obama noted that for the first time in nine years, “Americans are not fighting and dying in Iraq,” and that the nation was winding down its role in the conflict in Afghanistan.
“After a decade under the dark cloud of war, we can see the light of the new day on the horizon,” Obama said to an audience gathered at the Arlington amphitheater lined with American flags under a warm, brilliant sun.
Obama said the nation must remain committed to providing for the families of fallen soldiers and help returning service members seeking jobs, higher education or health-care benefits.
“As long as I’m president, we will make sure you and your loved ones will receive the benefits you’ve earned and the respect you deserve,” Obama said. “America will be there for you.”
Obama said that sending troops into harm’s way was “the most wrenching decision that I have to make. And I can promise you I will never do so unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
As he seeks re-election, Obama has reminded audiences about the end of the war in Iraq and the move to bring all troops home from Afghanistan by 2014. And in a campaign ad released last week, he credits U.S. servicemen who helped in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, meantime, promised Monday to maintain an American military “with no comparable power anywhere in the world.” Obama has proposed reducing the size of the military as the two wars draw to a close.
“We have two courses we can follow: One is to follow in the pathway of Europe, to shrink our military smaller and smaller to pay for our social needs,” Romney said outside San Diego’s Veterans Memorial Center and Museum. “The other is to commit to preserve America as the strongest military in the world, second to none, with no comparable power anywhere in the world.”
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee appeared with Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the GOP’s 2008 presidential candidate, at a Memorial Day event at the museum before a crowd estimated at 5,000.
McCain said Romney, “I believe, is fully qualified to be commander in chief.”
The 2012 campaign is the first modern presidential election in which neither major party candidate served in the military.
Veterans could play a significant role in the election. Exit polls in 2008 showed that Obama was supported by about 44 percent of voters who said they served in the military, while 54 percent voted for McCain, a former Navy pilot who was a prisoner of war for more than five years during the Vietnam War.
A poll released Monday by Gallup found that 58 percent of veterans support Romney and 34 percent back Obama.The results were based on a sample of 3,327 veterans who are registered voters and had a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
Several closely watched states in the election have large numbers of military voters. Florida, home to several military installations, has more than 1.6 million veterans, according to the Veterans Administration. Pennsylvania has nearly 1 million veterans, and Virginia and North Carolina each have about 800,000 veterans living in their states.
The president and first lady Michelle Obama started Monday with a breakfast at the White House for families who have lost loved ones in combat.
About 6,400 U.S. military personnel have died in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more than 48,000 have been wounded, according to the Defense Department.
Meanwhile, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Marine Gen. John Allen, read a 23-year-old slain sergeant’s letter during a Memorial Day service Monday in Kabul in memory of all the troops who have died in the country since the war started in 2001.
“Today we remember his life and his words, for they speak resoundingly and timelessly for our fallen brothers and sisters in arms,” Allen said of U.S. Marine Sgt. William Stacey, who was killed earlier this year by a homemade bomb in southern Afghanistan.
Stacey, who deployed with the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, 1st Marine Division out of Camp Pendleton, Calif., is one of at least 1,851 members of the U.S. military who have died in Afghanistan, according to an Associated Press count.
Allen said the soldiers who have fallen did not die in vain.
“While our brothers and sisters fell in a place far from home, far from their families, the values for which they stood and for which they lived and for which they died occupy an enduring place in our hearts,” Allen said. “Those values: freedom, duty, selflessness and sacrifice.”Information for this article was contributed by Ken Thomas, Steve Peoples and Sebastian Abbot of The Associated Press and by Roger Runningen, Meera Louis and John McCormick of Bloomberg News.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 05/29/2012