President uses holiday to praise U.S. diversity

WASHINGTON -- Leading his nation in honoring those who have paid the the price for freedom, President Clinton used two Memorial Day speeches to showcase the ethnic, racial and gender diversity of those who have answered the call during America's wars.

"Together they show the tremendous strength that not only our armed forces but our entire nation has drawn from our remarkable diversity," Mr. Clinton said. "They remind us of the riches our democracy creates by bringing the benefits of liberty to all Americans, regardless of their race or gender or station in life."

"Diversity" is often a polarizing word in U.S. politics these days because it is often used to justify the increasingly controversial granting of racial and gender preferences in hiring, promotion and college admissions.

But Mr. Clinton, who has held up the U.S. military as the right way to achieve affirmative action, made a deeper point yesterday: People of all colors and creeds, and women as well as men, have sacrificed in wartime to ensure freedom for their country.

In his first address, a White House ceremony to unveil a POW-MIA postage stamp, Mr. Clinton reeled off the names of several veterans who had been prisoners of war.

From World War II there were Lt. Col. Charles Prigmore, a flier shot down over Germany, and John "Bill" Rolen, an infantryman taken prisoner at Anzio, Italy. But there was also Army nurse Ruby Bradley, who was stationed in the Philippines and was a POW from 1942 to 1945.

Robert Fletcher, the lanky soldier captured by North Koreans in 1950 who stood briefly when Mr. Clinton read his name, is black; the man representing the Vietnam-era POWs, Isaac Camacho, is Latino. The recognized Persian Gulf war vet was Lt. Col. Rhonda Cornum, an army flight surgeon shot down in a helicopter and captured by the Iraqis. Her two broken arms are healed now; she saluted the commander in chief smartly when her name was called.

A short time later, while standing in front of the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery, Mr. Clinton employed the same imagery -- and amplified on the thinking behind it.

"Four graves around here today tell a good story," the president told the audience. "Right over there down Grant Drive is the grave of Col. Justice Chambers of the United States Marine Corps Reserve. For his extraordinary courage in taking vital high ground during the landing on Iwo Jima, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

"Just next to him lies Lt. Cmdr. Barbara Allen Rainey. She was the mother of two daughters, and the Navy's first female aviator. She died in a plane crash in 1982. Further down the walk lies the grave of Rear Adm. Richard E. Byrd Jr., known throughout the world as the first person ever to fly over the North Pole. And next to him lies Gen. Daniel 'Chappie' James, a Tuskegee airman who flew nearly 200 combat missions, a pilot in Korea and Vietnam as well. He rose through the ranks to become the first African-American four-star general."

Pausing briefly to let this sink in, the president added: "These four were very different in race and gender, service and generation. But they were united in their service to America. Together their lives are proof of perhaps our greatest American truth: That a nation of many really can be brought forth as one."

Two years ago, Mr. Clinton observed Memorial Day at the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial, where he was steadily heckled by veterans of that conflict who were resentful that he had avoided military service during Vietnam. Yesterday's ceremony was almost entirely free of any such background noise, save for one sudden shout of "Slick Willie" from a solitary heckler who seemed about to say more but who just as suddenly sat down and remained silent.

For the veterans groups, the Vietnam-related issue still on the table is not Mr. Clinton's lack of a war record, but rather his apparent inching toward granting full diplomatic relations to Vietnam. What is holding this up, administration officials say, are remaining questions over the fate of U.S. POWs and MIAs never accounted for.

Formal relations will not be established until the "fullest possible accounting" has been made for the missing Americans.

Mr. Clinton didn't tip which way he is leaning yesterday: He spoke positively of the cooperation Hanoi is providing toward clearing up the remaining cases, but he also insisted that "our work will go forward until we have done all there is to do."

But the day belonged less to thorny political questions and more to a simple celebration of those who did serve when duty called, regardless of their outward differences.

"We all look pretty much alike now," quipped one of them, retired Marine Sgt. Major John A. Rodriguez of Corpus Christi, Texas. "Pretty ordinary . . . and with our gray hair."