“Guys would climb the ladders to unhook the crane chains from the wall unarmed, while people are firin’ at ‘em. So it was high adventure,” Lt. Col. Brian Eifler remembered, whose team laid down cover fire while some soldiers, wide open and exposed, unhooked the chains from the crane.

That makes me proud. From Little Round Top, through Belleau Wood, through D-Day and Iwo Jima through Mogadishu and right up through today, no one comes close to the courage and dedication and sheer grit of the American Fighting Man.