Well, it is great to be here in beautiful Fort Campbell, Kentucky. And let me just say -- [Audience cheers loudly]
I wanna say first before we get started, um, on a somber note, we had, and some of you may have seen this on, on your phones or on social media, but apparently there was a shooting outside the White House just, uh, a couple of hours ago. And we're still learning everything. We still don't know the motive.
There's a lot that we haven't yet figured out. But what we do know is that a couple of National Guardsmen were injured in the line of duty. And, uh, first of all, I want everybody who's a person of faith to say a prayer for those two National Guardsmen, that they're able to spend Thanksgiving with their families instead of losing their lives. 'Cause I understand they're still in pretty tough condition.
But I think it's a, it's a somber reminder that soldiers, whether they're active duty, reserve, or National Guard, our soldiers are the sword and the shield of the United States of America. And as a person who goes into work every single day in that building and knows that there are a lotta people who wear the uniform of the United States Army, let me just say very personally, thank them for what they're doing, we're grateful to them, and we're praying that they're gonna be safe, and they're gonna spend Thanksgiving with their families.
God bless 'em. Now, I'm gonna talk a little bit about the business of the Army, and about what you're doing, and about why it's important to the United States of America, and why we are proud of you, every single one of our soldiers here in Fort Campbell and all across the world. We have got some incredible guests here, here to, to honor this moment, to honor you, to say thanks to so many of you for spending time away from your families here this day before Thanksgiving.
And I want to give just a few shout-outs to some of our special guests before we get started. First of all, to General Travis McIntosh and Command Sergeant Major Charles Walker. Thank you guys for leading this incredible facility, and thank you for serving in the United States Army, and making us proud. Where are you guys?
Please stand up and be recognized. Thank you all. We've got my dear friend, Senator Marsha Blackburn. Marsha, please stand up and say hello. And we, uh, and we also have Congressman Rose. Where is Congressman Rose? Please stand up. Thank you, Congressman. It's good to see you. Now, I've gotta, of course, thank my dear friend Bob Ritchie, you better know him as Kid Rock, but I wanna say to my staff, I gave them one instruction and that's that I don't have to follow a literal rock star before I give a speech.
And they screwed that up the day before Thanksgiving. So every single one of 'em are fired. But thank you to Bob Ritchie, Kid Rock, because he's not just a great musician, he's not just a great American, he is a person who loves the soldiers of the United States Army. And we are proud and grateful for Kid Rock for being here today.
I wanna take a, a another few moments and just say thanks to Major Josh Wilcox, Master Sergeant Aaron Duhaczek, Mr. Jim Parks, Major Rob Wright, and every single soldier who made it possible for me to come and visit. Now, I won't say that the weather is cooperating because it's windy as hell and it is cold, man.
It is cold up here. My staff told me to wear a jacket and I said, "Nah, I'll just be fine." And here I am, two minutes in, wishing that I had listened because it is, it is really freezing cold up here. But we're gonna, we're gonna have a little fun despite that, because we are here to celebrate not just the United States Army.
We're here to celebrate each and every one of you. And I know we've got some units here at Fort Campbell, and I want to give a shout-out to each of the great units. So if you are with the 101st Airborne Screaming Eagles, let me hear you a little bit. Where's the 101st Airborne? [Audience cheers]
That was pretty damn good. That was pretty damn good. Let me say that the 101st Airborne is one of the proudest units in the entire United States Army for all war fighters everywhere. Everybody knows the prestige, everybody knows the press, uh, professionalism, and everybody knows the greatness of the 101st Airborne.
So when the nation calls on the 101st Airborne, you all execute, you make us proud, you kick the enemies' ass, and you come home safely. And that's exactly what, uh, what we want our soldiers to do. [Audience member shouts "I agree"]
We are honored. Somebody said, "I agree." Thank you. [Laughter] I appreciate that endorsement. [Laughter] We are -- [Laughs] also honored to be here with, to welcome the men and women from the Strike and Destiny Brigades, who just finished deployments in Europe and the Middle East. Where the Strike and Destiny Brigades? [Audience cheers]
I wanna say to those of you who are here for the first time back home in a few months, we're proud of you, we're grateful to you, and for the Vice President of the United States, welcome home. We also wanna recognize the Legionnaires. Where we got some Legionnaires at? [Audience cheers]
Like five or six. [Laughter] We got some Legionnaires. How about the Night Stalkers with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment? We got some Night Stalkers out here? A few? Like three. They're all working right now. And I also wanna give a shout out to the 52nd Ordinance Group, members of the 2nd Battalion, 44th Air Defense Artillery, the men and women who run the elite training schools here, and many, many more soldiers who make this one of the proudest military installations anywhere in the United States Army.
And I want to tell you, just to give you a message from the President of the United States, I know he couldn't be here, but the President is proud of our soldiers and he's proud of every single one of you. So from the President of the United States, he just wanted to make sure that you knew he wished you a Happy Thanksgiving and he's grateful for all you do. Now, I'm proud and happy to serve with a lot of very good people.
And, uh, one of them is my dear friend, Dan Driscoll, who's the Secretary of the Army. Dan is doing a great job and I also wanna give a shout-out to our incredible Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth. I thi- -- think he's doing an amazing job. And, you know, Pete gave a speech at Quantico, which is a marine base.
Don't hold it against us, but he gave his speech in Quantico a few months ago that I think is one of the best speeches that I've heard about the United States Military, 'cause he was talking about the incredible esprit de corps and he was talking about the importance of holding the United States Army and all of our branches of the military to the very highest possible standards.
And I listened to the speech and I'm thinking as I'm watching this speech, man, Pete, this is a hell of a speech. This guy is one amazing order. And he was talking about the importance of military standards. He said, and I'm gonna quote here from his speech, "The new War Department grown rule is this, due unto your unit as you would have done unto your own child's unit.
Would you want him serving with fat or unfit or under trained troops, or alongside people who can't meet basic standards?" He was talking about the importance of bringing the highest standards possible to the United States Army. And I hear Pete saying that, and I'm like, "Hell, yeah. That's exactly what we want outta the United States Army." I see a lot of you nodding your heads.
And then he talks about the importance of this job and why we have to have the very best people doing this job. He says, "Because this job is life or death, standards must be met. And not just met at every level, we should seek to exceed the standard, to push the envelope, to compete. And this means that the War Department, first and foremost, we must restore a ruthless, dispassionate and common-sense application standards." And I'm like, "Man, this is awesome.
We're talking about bringing the highest standards in the world to the very best United States Army. I'm ready to run through a wall with this guy." And then Pete goes, "No more beardos." I'm like, "What the hell is that all about?" He's talking about me. And I said to Pete afterwards, I was like, "Man, you had me. This whole speech was amazing." But you know what?
The, the, the, the point is here that we believe in you so much. We believe in your mission so much that we know that you guys can meet the highest standards in the world. And when you look to your left and to your right, we want you to know that you're serving with the very best and the very brightest this nation has to offer.
Before I came over here, I was at the chow hall and we got to serve some, uh, some, some food to the soldiers there. And I was talking afterwards just, just sharing a meal with a few of the soldiers. And a guy said to me something really interesting, he said that 250 years ago when the Army started, there was a, a Prussian military leader who came over and helped train the very first United States Army. 'Cause of course, back then, we didn't have very many military experts in our country.
We were still in our infancy. And what he said was very fascinating, I think this guy's name he said was Von Steuben. Von Steuben said that it was only the Americans who just didn't need an order, but also needed to be told why they were doing what they were doing. And I thought that was a fascinating insight to the soldiers of 250 years ago and a fascinating insight to the soldiers of today.
We don't just want people who mindlessly follow orders. We want people who think, because we know that the most powerful weapon in the United States arsenal, the most powerful weapon anywhere in the world, it's not a rifle, it's not a tank, it's not a helicopter or an airplane. The most dangerous and lethal weapon anywhere in the u- -- in the world is a United States soldier.
And we're proud of you and we're gonna stand behind you every step of the way. And with that basic mindset of not just telling you what we need you to do, but why we need you to do it. I think you all should expect from your military leadership, from the President on down, you should expect us to explain what it is that we're doing and why we care so much about it. Why do we care so much about high standards?
Not just because we think that standards got a little lax in the last administration. We care about high standards because if, God forbid, the President of the United States asks you to go to war, we wanna make sure that the people that you're fighting with are the very best. We owe it to your moms and dads, your grandma's and grandpa's to only send the very best people off to foreign conflicts, and that is why we care so much about standards.
You've heard our Secretary of the Army, our Secretary of War, you've heard the President of the United States. If you've listened to anything that they've said over the last few months, they talk a lot about preparing the Army and the whole military for the age of modern warfare, because it's changed a lot.
We've got drones now, we've got cyber warfare, we've got satellites in space that are as important to the modern warfighter as anything, as, as any rifle or tank or airplane was 20 or 30 years ago. Now, yeah, of course we still got a lot of tanks. We still got a lot of rifles. We still got a lot of the things that we've always had.
But in this new generation of warfare, we need to give you the technology and the training to be the very best. And we know that you are the very best, but part of training you to be the very best is to make sure that you have the ability to use the modern weapons of warfare better than anybody else. When we look at the battlefield of the future, when we look at the next war, God forbid if we're called on to fight it, it is gonna be, if anything, a war up here as much as any other conflict in the history of the world.
If you look at what's going on in Russia or Ukraine, or you look at what's going on in some of our counterterrorism missions, or you look at what could happen in the future, in the next military conflict, it's not gonna be the war that we fought 20 years ago. It's gonna be a much different war. And one of the things I want every single one of you to know is that the President of the United States has given us a very simple mission, that we have got to equip you with the resources, with the training, and with the equipment to win the battle of the future.
Now, I happen to believe that one of the mistakes that we made in this country, and let's be honest, it wasn't just Democrats, it was Democrats and Republicans, is that we were far too willing to send the bravest people in the world, our best natural resource, you all, the, the young people who put on a military uniform and are willing to fight and die for their fellow countrymen, we were too willing to send you off to battle without a clear mission, a clear definition of what you were supposed to accomplish.
That was the mistake of Democrats and Republicans. It is the great stain on the political leadership of this country, that we had the best troops in the world, and very often we went and sent you off to battle without a clear mission. And that is something this President and this administration is never gonna do. If we ask you to go off and do something, if we ask our soldiers to risk their lives, to defend their countries, what I promise you is that we're only gonna do it with a clear mission and clear guidelines.
And we're gonna give you the tools necessary, we're gonna give you the resources necessary, and we are gonna empower you to do a very simple thing, which is kick the enemy's ass and come home safely. That's what the United States wants from its soldiers, and that's what the President of the United States asks of each and every one of you.
It's not that hard, but that's what you should demand of your political leadership. Just as you follow orders of the President of the United States, this President stands by you, and if he asks you to do something hard, it's only gonna be for a very good reason. You know, one of the things that I love about Thanksgiving, it's probably my, my, my favorite American holiday.
If you think about all the holidays that we ce- -- celebrate, Thanksgiving is the most uniquely American holiday. You know, Christmas, of course, the birth of Jesus. All of these other holidays, they're, they're very important. And I love Christmas as much as anybody. I've got three little kids. But Christmas is a holiday that 1.8 billion Christians celebrate all over the world.
Thanksgiving, what we celebrate tomorrow, that is a uniquely American thing. That's why, for example, we have, you know, turkey, think about turkey. Who really likes, be honest with yourself, who really likes turkey? [A handful of audience members cheer] You're all full of shit. [Laughter] Everybody who raised your hand, I know, think about it. And here's, here's how I know that every single one of you who raised your hand is lying to me. How many times do you roast an 18-pound turkey just randomly?
Just, you know, a nice summer afternoon, we're gonna go get an 18-pound turkey? Nobody does it 'cause turkey doesn't actually taste that good. But on Thanksgiving, on the most American holiday [Laughs], I got a, I got a fan over here, on the most American holiday, we're gonna cook a turkey, by God, because that's what Americans do. We cook this gigantic American bird, and we do all kinds of crazy things to make it taste good.
I talked to a, to a soldier today who she said she's gonna deep-fry a turkey. And I'm actually gonna deep-fry a turkey myself tomorrow. And look, here's the thing, if you've gotta deep-fry something s- -- to make it taste good, it probably isn't that good. That's a pretty good rule of thumb when it comes to food.
Chicken is good all the time. Chicken is good when you deep-fry it, but it's also good outside of it. There's the thing about Thanksgiving. It is so American because at the heart of it is the spirit of gratitude. And I know that every single one of you has something tomorrow to be very thankful for and to be grateful for.
And that's what I think, you know, really separates, people ask me all the time for advice, and the only piece of advice I, I, I can ever give that I, I think is true for every single person in every circumstance is that the happiest people that I've ever met, the most successful people that I've ever ne- -- met, they live their life with a spirit of gratitude.
They recognize that they would not be there but for the grace of God and a lot of great people in their lives. And so, if I may, as your vice president, that's the one piece of advice I wanna give y- -- to you on this day before Thanksgiving, is to live your life in the United States Army, to live your life everywhere with a spirit of gratitude, to recognize that you wouldn't be wearing that uniform were it not for somebody in your life who loved you and cared for you, that you wouldn't have this incredible opportunity to serve the United States.
And yes, it's tough, and yes, it's a life of sacrifice, but I happen to believe that the life of service and sacrifice is the greatest blessing that we have in this room today, because what an amazing country it is that takes people from all walks of life and makes them part of the same United States Army, the same sor- -- sword and shield for the American people, the same organization that for 250 years has kept us safe.
So tomorrow I'm thankful for a lot. I'm thankful for my, my beautiful wife and our three beautiful kids. I'm thankful to be, to, to, to have the opportunity to serve as Vice President of the United States of America. I'm thankful for my family. I'm thankful to Almighty God for the incredible blessings that he's given this country and also he's given to me personally.
But one of the things at the very top of the list that I'm thankful for is the United States Army and for the people in this room. Now, I know that a lot of you are gonna spend tomorrow with your friends and families, but I also know that a lot of you are not gonna have that opportunity, that you've got deployments you've gotta prepare for, that you're stuck on this base, you're not able to travel home because you've gotta prepare for the mission.
And when I think about all the many blessings that are very, very present in my life, there is nothing that compares to being the Vice President of the United States at a time like this, vice president of all of you, vice president of the greatest fighting force that exists anywhere in the world, the United States Army.
You guys, you guys make this a happy Thanksgiving for me because every single day you show up to work, you put on that uniform and make your nation proud. You make me proud to be your vice president. So happy Thanksgiving, soldiers. Keep on doing what you're doing, and never forget that the most deadly weapon anywhere in the world, it's not about technology, it's not about what you're holding in your hands.
It's about what's up here. You are the most dangerous weapon anywhere in the world, and America is counting on it to keep us safe. Happy Thanksgiving, soldiers. Thank you for having me. God bless you.