00:00Please, airmen, at ease. It's good to be here with you. Please have a seat.
00:03I see we have some beautiful families out there.
00:06You know, I served a few years in the Marine Corps, and I've got to say, I'm pretty jealous.
00:11This is a pretty fine duty station, if I do say so myself.
00:15This is a beautiful country. I just spent the past few days here, actually.
00:19Some meetings, some downtime with the family, and we've had a very, very good time here in England.
00:24The United Kingdom, of course, is one of our great allies, so I think I speak for all the pathfinders here.
00:30Is that right? What I say?
00:33And all the Red Dragon folks as well?
00:38What I say that we are proud of the special relationship, and we are proud to work together with our British friends right here at Fairford Base.
00:46God bless you all.
00:48So, here's a simple thing.
00:50We've got a beautiful country here. We've got a beautiful alliance.
00:54And I think every single one of you know that for over 100 years, we have worked with our friends from the United Kingdom to achieve great victories.
01:03And if you look at the long sweep of history, every time something big happens for the world,
01:09every time a great victory is won for freedom and for peace and for prosperity,
01:15it is almost always the Brits and the Americans that do it together, and we win every single time we go to war together.
01:24You guys know that as well as anybody.
01:26But it's not just about going to war, and it's not just winning when we do.
01:30When we work together, when we fight together, when we make it clear that we always approach every situation with an open hand,
01:38but if things go poorly, we're willing to do what we have to do.
01:42We make it easier to achieve peace and prosperity all over the world.
01:46So I want to say, from all of us back home in the United States,
01:50for all the people that you serve with, that you fight for, that you make it possible
01:54to live the American dream and peace and prosperity,
01:58we are proud of you.
01:59We are grateful for you.
02:00And as your Vice President, I am damn proud to be here with you today.
02:04God bless every single one of you.
02:16Now, it would be impossible for me to list every single thing that has happened
02:22just from this single base over the past hundred years,
02:25from World War I to our operations against terrorists in Yemen.
02:29The history of this base, of its mission, of all of the things that we've done with our friends
02:35from the United Kingdom, it is a very, very proud tradition.
02:39So I won't try to list everything that we've done, but you guys know the mission,
02:43you guys know the story, and you guys know the history.
02:46We have done so much with our English friends, with our friends from the UK,
02:49and, you know, I started the day, or excuse me, I started the week in a place called Chevening
02:56with the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom further south in the country in a county called Kent.
03:02And what we did is we worked on our, one of our most important shared security goals in Europe,
03:08which is the end of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
03:13The President of the United States came in six months ago,
03:15and I just talked to him right before I came on the stage, and he said very simply
03:19that we are going to make it our mission as an administration to bring peace to Europe once again.
03:25But as you all know, it is impossible to bring peace anywhere
03:28unless the bad guys are also worried that we've got a hell of a fine Air Force
03:33and a hell of a fine military to back up the peace to begin with.
03:37So what you guys do, even though you may not see it every single day, is you make it possible.
03:42You make it possible for us to accomplish the President's goals through negotiation.
03:47You make it possible for us to go into a room and say,
03:50yes, we want peace.
03:52Yes, we want to work together.
03:54Yes, we'd like to bring an end to this terrible conflict.
03:56But we've also got some great airmen back at Fairford and other bases
04:00that are going to make sure that no matter what happens,
04:03the peace and the prosperity and the goals of the American people
04:07are going to be well served by what you do.
04:09So I think if you look back at the last six months,
04:13if you look back at the number of lives that we've saved in Rwanda and the Congo,
04:17the President ended a 30-year war there.
04:20If you look at what we've done in the East Asia,
04:24where the President ended a conflict,
04:25in Serbia, Kosovo, where the President has brought peace to that area of the world,
04:29and now, in just a couple of days,
04:31with the President heading to Anchorage, Alaska,
04:34to try to achieve and end to this terrible war in Russia and Ukraine,
04:37you guys make that possible.
04:40You guys are the reason why we can go into a negotiation with strength.
04:44You guys are the reason why we have leverage in these conversations with world leaders,
04:49because they know that if we cut a deal,
04:51it is backed up by the finest fighting force anywhere in the world.
04:56And that is what makes your job so important,
04:59and that's what makes it so important
05:01and such a proud moment for me to be here with you today.
05:04Because nothing that I do,
05:06nothing that we do as an administration,
05:08is possible without the hard work,
05:11the courage, and the skill
05:12that you guys bring to the job.
05:15Now, I mentioned earlier,
05:16I was at Chevening meeting with the British Foreign Secretary.
05:18I've met with a number of foreign leaders
05:21just in the last, actually, hour,
05:24I had a call with about 30 European leaders.
05:27And over the past couple of days,
05:28I've met with a number of leaders across the UK,
05:31across political parties, across the generations,
05:34because that's one of the great things
05:35about the UK's special relationship with the United States
05:39is it cuts across political alliances,
05:42it cuts across political parties,
05:44it cuts across generations,
05:45because we've been working together for literally centuries.
05:48And you know what every single person that I meet
05:51often tells me?
05:53They tell me about how impressed they are
05:55by the skill, by the determination,
05:58and by the dedication of the American military.
06:01You all are what make it possible for us to do what we do.
06:05When Marco Rubio, our great Secretary of State,
06:08goes to engage in some diplomatic negotiation,
06:11he knows that he's got the great people
06:13of the Secretary of Defense standing behind him.
06:15And that fact, the fact that people are impressed by you,
06:18the fact that so many people are, frankly, afraid of you,
06:21is why we're able to do what we do as an administration.
06:25So I just want to say from the President of the United States,
06:28who, again, I just spoke to,
06:29and he told me to give you this message,
06:30we're proud of you, we're grateful to you,
06:33we know that it's not always an easy job,
06:35we know there are often long hours,
06:37but I hope you know that the peace and the prosperity
06:40and the safety of your countrymen
06:42depend on you doing a good job,
06:45and we are damn proud of the job that you do every single day.
06:49God bless you all,
06:50and thank you for having me, your Vice President,
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