Troops, as usual, you look magnificent. And thanks for all that you do to protect our country.
Many thanks to the band for what they always do—make every event that much more special. So thank you, band.
Chairman, I gotta tell you, an image of me that is that size is quite unnerving—to me.
Now, I actually think this is payback for my staff members, who have had to look at an image like that—oversized—every day.
Well, good morning, everybody. It’s great to see everyone.
And I am deeply grateful to General Brown and everyone else who arranged this wonderful event.
Gary, a special thanks to you for another stellar performance.
I’m truly grateful for all of you for braving the cold today to be here with us, especially those of you who traveled great distances.
Now, this is actually my second ceremony retiring from the Department of Defense. And over the past four years, my wife Charlene has repeatedly pointed out to me that I failed retirement.
This has been a blessing that I never imagined. And it has been an incredible journey—first 41 years in the U.S. Army, and then four more years as Secretary of Defense.
And as I’ve said, American democracy is not a sprint but a relay race. And as we pass the baton, I am very proud of what we’ve achieved over the past four years.
In my first Message to the Force as Secretary, I laid out three priorities: defend the nation, take care of our people, and succeed through teamwork. And we have made huge progress on all three.
We have intensely focused the Department of Defense on the “pacing challenge” from the People’s Republic of China. We’ve made sweeping upgrades to our posture in the Indo-Pacific.
We’ve rallied the free world to help Ukraine fight for its freedom against Putin’s imperial aggression. We’ve led a NATO alliance that is stronger, larger, and more united than ever.
We’ve prevented an all-out war in the Middle East, seen Iran’s proxies gutted across the region, and worked tirelessly to save Palestinian civilians in Gaza. We’ve also secured a ceasefire that will halt the fighting in Gaza, reunite hostages with their families, and surge much-needed humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
We’ve reinforced our unmatched network of allies and partners around the globe.
We’ve invested deeply in the future of our military, including a defense budget that is set to increase in Fiscal Year 2025 by more than $100 billion from where we started in 2021. And we’ve taken huge strides to take care of our people—including raising base pay for our troops by almost 10 percent since 2021, making historic reforms to the military-justice system, and helping military spouses pursue their own careers.
For the past four years, we’ve stood up to our rivals, we’ve weakened our foes, strengthened our friends, invested in our future, and done right by our people.
Now, that doesn’t just happen. And I am incredibly grateful to the exceptional team that has changed the course of history.
Above all, my thanks to my Commander in Chief—our Commander in Chief. And I will forever be touched by President Biden’s faith in me.
Now, I had the chance to talk about our President yesterday at his Armed Forces farewell. So I will just say again that our First Family is also a military family, and the President and the First Lady have always understood the worry and the pride that our military families carry. And President Biden has been an extraordinary guardian of America’s bipartisan tradition of global leadership.
Let me also thank Kath Hicks.
Kath, you have been a fantastic Deputy. You’ve insisted on results. You are a barrier-breaker and a change-maker. And you have made history. So thank you, Secretary Hicks. You deserve another round of applause.
I’m deeply grateful to our outstanding Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General C.Q. Brown Jr. He is a legendary warfighter—brave, wise, and principled. And America’s foes could have no worse enemy. America’s allies could have no greater friend. And a Secretary of Defense could have no better partner. Let’s give it up for General C.Q. Brown.
I am grateful to our interagency partners on the national-security team, who worked so well together for four years. My thanks to Vice President Harris, Secretary Blinken, Secretary Yellen, Secretary McDonough, Jake Sullivan, Director Haines, Director Burns, Chief of Staff Zients, and many, many more.
I’d also like to thank our outstanding Service Secretaries—Christine Wormuth, Carlos Del Toro, and Frank Kendall.
Thanks for your leadership and your vision.
And I’m grateful to our Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Chris Grady, and our incredible service chiefs: General Randy George; General Eric Smith; Admiral Lisa Franchetti; General David Allvin; General Chance Saltzman; and General Steven Nordhaus.
It’s been a privilege to work with all of you. And it’s been an honor to work alongside so many talented leaders and dedicated public servants across the Department.
I’d especially like to thank my extraordinary team in the Office of the Secretary of Defense—which I call Team 28. You have been brilliant, creative, and tireless. I’ve always been grateful for your skill, your dedication, and your integrity. And I am especially grateful to your families and loved ones, who made your service possible.
I can’t name all of you now or we’d never get out of here—but please know how much you all mean to me.
I especially want to thank my Chiefs of Staff—my first Chief of Staff, Kelly Magsamen, and her Deputy, Mela Louise Norman.
And they helped me build this team. And I’m deeply grateful to my current Chief, Derek Chollet, and my Deputy Chief of Staff, Caroline Zier, who have guided us home.
I’m also proud to have served with four superb Senior Military Assistants: Generals Bryan Fenton, Randy George, Ron Clark, and Jenn Short.
And for my Principal Military Assistants, Junior Military Assistants, our Front Office noncommissioned officers, and all their families: believe me, I know how hard it was—and how much you gave.
Let’s have a round of applause for the best team in the business.
I also want to thank my family. I’m thinking today of my parents. My dad, who did so much to point me in the right direction—including pushing me pretty firmly toward West Point.
We lost my mom while I was deployed to Iraq. I have never met a wiser person, and I miss her every day.
I’m also deeply grateful for the support and love of my siblings—my brother Morris, and my four big sisters, Patricia, Carolyn, Serena, and our late sister Lloydette. We miss her so much.
I am incredibly proud of our sons, Reggie and Shane, and the fine men that they have become. When I think of the future, I think of you two.
And above all, I want to thank my wife Charlene. Charlene, I was first struck by your warm smile and your wonderful laugh. And all these years, I’ve come to rely on your strength, your spirit, and your love.
You made huge sacrifices as a military spouse, and then you had to change course again when I uprooted the peaceful retirement that we’d just begun.
You are the source of everything good in my life. And marrying you was the best decision that I ever made, and it’s not even close. Char, I love you.
Above all, I want to speak to the troops today. You know, this business isn’t just about platforms and procurement. It’s about you.
We are not just the most lethal fighting force on Earth. We are also the finest fighting force on Earth. And that is down to all of you.
Many of you have heard me talk about my first platoon sergeant, Sergeant First Class “Fox” Ballard. And he taught me that the most important thing you can do is to take care of your people. And that has always been my North Star.
Our greatest strategic advantage will always be the talents of the American people. We don’t lower our standards for our recruits. We take good people, and make them even better. Those who want to join us must raise their game. But any military that turns away qualified patriots who are eager to serve is just making itself smaller and weaker.
Ladies and gentlemen, the power of the United States military flows from both our people and our principles. Our capabilities are unrivaled. Our platforms are unmatched. But those are expressions of our strength, not its foundation.
Every military defends a country. But the United States military also defends a Constitution.
Now, that isn’t some side point. It’s the oath that I swore when I commissioned: “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
That is what we do.
And that is who we are.
And I will never stop saying this.
We defend not just the American people but also the American idea. We are not just any military. We are the United States military. We defend government of the people, by the people, and for the people—and we do not bend on matters of honor, integrity, or law.
You know, I was taught at West Point to pray that I would “choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong.” And I have tried every day as Secretary to live up to that teaching.
I know that may sound old-fashioned—but when it comes to flag, country, and Constitution, I am an old-fashioned guy.
Ladies and gentlemen, I leave the Department of Defense with great pride—and great confidence. And that’s because of you. Because of your courage. Your character. Your strength. Your integrity. And your commitment to excellence. And your refusal to accept dishonor or defeat.
You know, there’s a great tension—even a paradox—at the heart of our enterprise. Those of us who spend our lives trying to master war are also the ones who best understand its terrors. If we must use military force to defend our country, we will not flinch and we will not fail. But we have learned in the hardest possible way that we should be modest about what force can achieve—and be wary of its unexpected consequences.
Now, we understand that this mighty Department is just one of our tools of national power. And it has been my duty to keep our country from returning to those terrible times of great-power war—to the dangerous decades when America abandoned its position of global leadership and came to believe that we could stand alone and apart while freedom itself was in mortal danger.
Over the past five decades, I have seen the United States military change profoundly. We’ve gone from the limping and demoralized conscript force of Vietnam to the lethal powerhouse of today’s all-volunteer force.
And because I served three long tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, I’ve had the privilege of having a front-row seat at the greatest stage in the world. I’ve seen again and again what our fighting men and women will do for their teammates and for their country. I have seen American troops do amazing things, over and over again. And I know that you will continue to keep us safe and make us proud.
You know, Omar Bradley used to keep a cartoon hanging over his desk at home. It showed an infantryman sitting with a rifle across his knees. And above him was a list of cutting-edge weapons. Yet the soldier in the cartoon is saying, “But they still haven’t found a substitute for me.”
That’s still true. There is no substitute for American troops and for men and women of courage and character.
And there’s no substitute for principled leadership. You know, you can’t push someone into battle. You’ve got to lead them into battle.
And for troops in every branch who are looking for how to do that, let me again point you toward Omar Bradley. He declared that “Leadership means firmness, not harshness; understanding, not weakness; justice, not irresponsible freedom; humaneness, not intolerance; generosity, not selfishness; pride, not egotism.”
I am incredibly proud of our all-volunteer force. You and your families bear an extraordinary burden to keep your fellow citizens safe. And we must always be honest with ourselves about the sacrifices that this enterprise demands.
Over the past four years, yellow folders have arrived at my desk, again and again. Those yellow folders carry the letters of condolence—to the parents of the fallen, to new widows and widowers, and to children who will grow up without their mom and dad.
I have sat with those letters. I have thought of them before each decision. And I will hold them in my heart until the day I die.
I still mourn for the fallen of Abbey Gate. Of Tower 22. Of every Soldier, Sailor, Airman, Marine, and Guardian lost in a training accident. And of every American in uniform who gave in to unseen wounds and took their own life. And I hope that, as Lincoln said, we will all take increased devotion from these honored dead.
Serving as Secretary of Defense has been the highest honor of my life—and the heaviest responsibility. This job demands calm, judgment, and humility. It tests you. It tempers you. And I shouldered it with a deep sense of resolve and duty, and I will set it aside with gratitude and confidence. And I am deeply proud of what we have achieved together at this hinge in history.
The world continues to look to America. And we must stand as a beacon of freedom.
We are not just any country. We are the guardians of the revolutionary ideals of our founders.
They believed that governments exist to serve their people, and not the other way around. They believed that all human beings are created equal. They believed that we are all endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights. They believed that tyrants and kings have had their day. And they believed, in the final reckoning, power belongs to the people.
You know, those beliefs still inspire the world. And they still spur us on.
As I said last year in Normandy, 80 years after D-Day, we still seek a world where aggression is a sin, and where human rights are sacred, and where all people can live in freedom.
Now, I am a proud graduate of the Class of 1975 from West Point. My class motto was “courage and drive.”
Courage and drive—those are the virtues that our military still needs, and still embodies.
This final turn of duty has been a time of great pride—because of the extraordinary Americans whom I have had the honor of leading and serving alongside. That means everyone in this room, and everyone in this Department—from the greenest cadet to the most decorated general.
And I am more proud to be your teammate than words can ever convey.
Now, soldiers tell war stories—especially old soldiers.
So let me end with one. And it’s the same one that I used to end my speech when I retired from the Army in 2016—little knowing that my path would bring me here today.
And it’s one that at least one member of this audience is very familiar with, because he was there with me. His name is Ted Koppel.
In the spring of 2003, I was leading the 3rd Infantry Division through the Karbala Gap in southern Iraq. The night before our charge, we were locked in a huge artillery duel with elements of the Iraqi Republican Guard. And we knew that in the morning, we would have to execute one of the hardest maneuvers of the Iraq war—and that was to get an entire heavy division through an area only two kilometers wide.
That night of fire and thunder finally passed. Dawn broke. And as we were about to move out, a Bradley Fighting Vehicle rode past our position. And on its antenna waved an American flag.
Now, that flag was tattered and torn. It was dirty with desert sand and dust. But it flew proudly amid the winds of war.
I will never forget that sight—or that moment. And the memory of seeing that flag came back to me as I thought about my remarks today.
Francis Scott Key gave America our anthem with his poem about a flag that “catches the gleam in the morning’s first beam.” And I often think about that one flag on the battlefield—snapping in the wind, ripped and battered, but still bold and proud. And I think of the courage of every American Soldier, Sailor, Airman, Marine, and Guardian who has carried our flag over the centuries into battle—in defense of the great experiment in democracy that we call the United States of America.
That is the flag for which we fight.
That is the flag that carries the hopes of our founders.
And that is the flag that honors the sacrifice of our fallen.
That is the flag of our values, the flag of our vows, and the flag of our vision.
It still waves over the land of the free and the home of the brave.
I know that you will never let it fall.
And I know that you will proudly carry forward the flag of the United States of America—with courage and drive.
Thank you. May God protect our troops. And may God continue to bless the United States of America.
