Excerpt from General MacArthur’s Farewell Speech — Duty, Honor, Country (May 12, 1962) 

His speech was to the cadets of the U.S. Military Academy while accepting the Sylvanus Thayer Award on 12 May 1962. It is a memorable tribute to the ideals that inspired that great American soldier. For as long as other Americans serve their country as courageously and honorably as he did, General MacArthur’s words will live on.

 " . . .They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for actions, not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm, but to have compassion on those who fall; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future, yet never neglect the past; to be serious, yet never to take yourself too seriously; to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength. .  ."

Chris loves this excerpt as it exemplifies how he was trained and taught at the Air Force Academy and how he has tried to continue/maintain his daily life.