Clinton Offers Prayer For Peace On Anniversary Of End Of Wwii
President Clinton offered a prayer for peace Sunday as he wound up a three-day commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Speaking at an interfaith religious service at the Waikiki Band Shell on Honolulu’s most famous beach, Clinton said he hoped the world drew a lasting lesson from the global conflagration of half a century ago.
“I believe the lesson will be … that citizens, when given a choice, will not choose to live under dictators; that people, when given the opportunity to let the better angels of their natures rise to the top, will not embrace theories of political or racial or ethnic superiority,” he said.
The president read a prayer written by poet Stephen Vincent Benet that President Franklin D. Roosevelt recited in 1942, during the war’s darkest period.
“God of the free, grant us brotherhood and hope and union, not only for the space of this bitter war, but also for the days to come, which shall and must unite all the children of Earth,” he read. “We are, all of us, children of Earth; grant us that simple knowledge. If our brothers are oppressed, then we are oppressed.”
Clinton and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton joined with comedian Bob Hope, his wife, Delores, and Maxine Andrews, the last surviving member of the Andrews Sisters trio, in a spirited rendition of “America the Beautiful.”
The service was the final official ceremony in a weekend that included solemn remembrance for the war’s 300,000 American dead at a military cemetery in the hills over Honolulu, homage to the men who died in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, and tributes by Clinton to the men and women who won victory in 1945.
“The World War II generation truly saved the world,” he said.
The weekend also included sightseeing, parties and even Big Band dances for the estimated 10,000 World War II veterans who came to participate. Hope, 92, who won the hearts of millions of troops in World War II with his traveling variety shows, appeared at one of the dances Saturday night and sang his old signature tune, “Thanks for the Memories,” as some in the audience wept.
Saturday was the 50th anniversary of the Japan’s formal surrender to the United States and its allies aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2, 1945.
Later Sunday, the president flew to California for visits to Monterey, Alameda County and Fresno.
In California Monday, Clinton will open a new campus for the California State University system on the grounds of the former Fort Ord Army base in Monterey County, a facility the president plans to hail as an example of how military base closings can be used for local economic development.
Fort Ord was closed in 1994 with a loss of 14,000 military jobs and 2,835 civilian jobs. The Bush administration and, later, the Clinton administration directed a total of $240 million in federal funding to help redevelop the site.
Clinton will also mark Labor Day with a visit to the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton, where the county’s labor unions are holding their annual picnic.
On Tuesday, the president plans to stop in Fresno to teach a U.S. history class to eighth-graders and give a speech that aides said will denounce Republican attempts to cut federal spending on education.