President Joe Biden is honoring U.S. troops who sacrificed their lives for the country Monday, visiting Arlington National Cemetery to to lay a wreath and deliver his annual Memorial Day address.
Mr. Biden praised the fallen as having been “bound by a common commitment not to a place, not to a person, not to a president, but to an idea…the idea of the United States of America.” It echoed the president’s commencement speech at West Point, when he told graduating cadets that they were the guardians of democracy, and they had taken “an oath — not to a political party, not to a president, but to the Constitution of the United States of America — against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
Ken Cedeno / REUTERS
Earlier, Mr. Biden hosted a Memorial Day breakfast for veterans at the White House.
On Friday, Mr. Biden issued a proclamation to recommit to honoring the memories of the fallen “by carrying on their work to forge a more perfect Union.”
“We are the only Nation in the world founded on the idea that we are all created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our entire lives,” the president’s proclamation reads. “Generations of America’s beloved daughters and sons have dared all, risked all, and given all for this idea. Today, as they lie in eternal peace, we continue to live by the light of liberty they kept burning bright.”
Bo Erickson contributed to this report.