I really appreciate the opportunity to be here with you today and share this special time of recognition for tremendous service to our country. Being on this campus is a particular joy for me. Missouri State is very close to my heart; I was an undergraduate here, then a graduate student, now I am honored to represent this district in the MO General Assembly. And my oldest son, Thomas is a student here right now. The university's public affairs mission is certainly exemplified by events like this one, which brings together campus faculty and staff and community members.

Back when I was first on this campus, in the late sixties, this country was at war, as we are now. As a young woman from a small town, I had grown up knowing the importance of military service. In Cassville, we celebrated Decoration Day, (we usually call it Memorial Day now), we decorated the town in patriotic colors for the Fourth of July, and we honored our veterans on Veteran's Day.

But the realities of war and the demands of military service were not things I really understood at all until I came here to attend college. Here, I met young men headed into an uncertain situation in Vietnam. I took classes with professors who had fought in both World Wars and in Korea. And then, I had an opportunity to travel overseas with a USO tour. These experiences changed me forever.

Traveling overseas to Japan, to the Philippines...was just like getting a whole college education in just a few weeks. I had never been so proud to be an American, nor had I ever understood before just how fortunate I was to have a military in place ready to go anywhere, do anything to defend this country. I realized how extraordinary it is, that there are people willing to invest their very lives to secure the safety of people they will never meet.