Trump promises total victory against Iran in Veterans Day speech

U.S. Envoys. Everything that we are, everything that we hope to become is built on the courage of those willing to endure an unimaginable and to some just unbearable and to stand strong when all else gives way, stand stronger than anybody that's ever stood before. And I will never allow anyone to hurt our country. We're not going to allow anyone to hurt or damage our country with bad, Foolish. Horrible ideology. I'm not going to let it happen. And everyone knows what I mean. In 2010, Green Beret Ryan Hendrickson was leading his team through a Taliban-held village in Afghanistan at three in the morning when he was stepped on by enemy. I mean, he was, the enemy was all over. And he made the mistake, a mistake that people understood when they were in the battles of jungles. He stepped on. Enemy explosives, a lot of them. The blast ripped through his lower body and he looked down to see his shattered bones protruding from his absolutely mangled leg and arm, certain that he would die. Ryan's only thought as he was airlifted away was the men he was leaving behind. He couldn't stand the thought of it. He endured 27 surgeries and two cardiac arrests. But the doctor saved both his life and his leg. They told him his combat career was over, but Ryan was not done. 18 months later, he returned to Afghanistan. As his team cleared another village, a barrage of terrorist gunfire pinned down two of his men with the enemy closing in. They said they didn't have a chance. Ryan was ordered to stand down, don't go. Under any circumstances, do not go. But he had not come all the way just to leave his comrades in danger behind. He charged forward despite orders. You should have listened to those orders. But he charged forward into the fire of that same leg. It was hit again, a valiant race to rescue the dying men from the clutches of the Taliban evil group. For his courage, he was awarded the Silver Star. Sergeant First Class Ryan Hendrickson, you saved a lot of people that day. Thank you very much, even though you disobeyed orders, which we don't like. Thank goodness you did. Ryan, please stand up. Thank you. These are very brave people. Whenever I visit our troops anywhere, and I do it as often as possible, but anywhere in the world, I see that same fierce determination burning in their eyes and that same love of country beating in their hearts. I'm pleased to report that the spirit of our armed forces is higher than ever before, and that we have the best recruitment numbers in the history of our country. There's never been recruitment anywhere near that. Thank you very much. And General Kane, thank you. And Pete, thank you. Great spirit. We have a tremendous spirit. Two years ago, we had shortages. Now we We have waiting lists of people that want to get into. The United States military, which is stronger and more powerful today than ever before, we built it during my first administration. We used it a little bit now. In Venezuela, we won the war in 48 minutes and in one of the most stunning displays of military dominance and power the world has ever seen. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. This Veterans Day, I also want to say a very special thanks to every service member currently working to ensure that The world's number one state sponsor of terror, the Islamic Republic of Iran, will never have a nuclear weapon. Here today is a veteran who reminds us why that mission really matters. As a young man, Dale Garner enlisted in the Marines after the Iran hostage crisis. Soon he deployed to Beirut on a mission of peace. But on the morning of October 23rd, 1983, Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists, all, by the way, terrorists, all, detonated a truck packed with explosives at the Marine barracks with hundreds of Americans inside. Dale's first memory is waking up in a hospital bed and his catastrophic head injuries and wounds, a collapsed lung, a broken back, torn up legs, ruptured ear, eardrums. Horrific burns across his entire body and all over his face. He was the sole survivor of the men around him. And he joins us here to remember the 241 American service members murdered in the Beirut barracks bombing, the deadliest day for the Marine Corps since Iwo Jima. Dale, please stand up. Thank you. You look good, Dale. He looks good. Handsome guy. What's going on here? Thank you very much. That was a terrible time. America did not start a war with Iran. Iran has been waging war on America since 1979. This should have been taken care of a long time ago. Under this administration, thank you. Under this administration, and it was about time, somebody fought back. All of us fought back. We fought back. And we seriously fought back. And we won. Just a question of wouldn't we want to? End it. We want to make sure we have a total victory, not a 93% victory. It's going to be total. It'll take them 25 years to rebuild back what we have destroyed, and hopefully we won't have to destroy any more of that country. We've got a lot of work to do to put it back. U.S. involvement in the Korean War lasted four years, and we lost 36,500 great people. The Vietnam War 21 years that we lost. 60,000 people. Iraq went on for eight years and we lost more than 4,400 people. Afghanistan was almost 20 years and we lost 2,500 service members and got very little from any of these wars. In our case, we had Venezuela where we're taking out billions and billions of dollars of oil And all sorts of other things. Hundreds of billions very soon. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. And we paid for the cost of the war many, many times over already. Nobody has ever even envisioned that. To the victor belong the spoils, they used to say. But you can say it again with us under this leadership. And Iran, where we stopped them from having a nuclear weapon, the B-2 bombers, they took them out We began operations against Iran seven months ago, of which only a few weeks were active hard fighting. We lost 18 beautiful souls, but when this conflict is over, and it will be soon, the entire world will be a much safer and better place, a more peaceful place, and a place without the kind of danger that we had to suffer. Because the bravery and skill of our amazing American warriors has absolutely been incredible. So in the case of Venezuela, we have millions of barrels of oil coming out on a weekly basis and billions and billions of dollars. And China left when I called them, got to leave. And Russia left when I called them. They were all nibbling at the edges, said, you got to leave. They left, but we didn't leave. But when the battle ends, our commitment to those who serve is only just beginning. It's only just beginning. It's going to go on forever, things that you would never even think about. But we have to be strong, we have to be brave, and we have to be respected like we are right now. We've never been any more respected. I would say we are right now more respected than this country has ever been before. And if you go back two years ago, it wasn't pretty. The world was laughing at us. But that's all why I'm very proud to have done more to improve care for American veterans than any president in modern history, to ensure our veterans get the treatment they have earned. I passed the VA choice and the VA accountability, two of the most important things ever passed. Nobody thought they could be passed, but we got it done. In less than two years, we have cut the VA claims backlog by 71 percent. I signed the VA Home Loan Reform Act so that no veteran loses their home to foreclosure. The banks are not happy about that, but we are happy and the veterans are happy. It's all that matters. And we've secured housing for nearly 100,000 homeless veterans who were not Properly taken care of in the last administration. And we're committed to ending the veterans' homelessness. I mean, you had it. It was a plague, a horrible plague. We're working very hard on it, and we're getting the numbers down by percentages that nobody thought were even possible to think about. We're doing a real job, and Doug Collins has been fantastic, I will tell you. America's veterans have always fulfilled their duty to us, and while I'm president of the United States, we will always fulfill our duty to them. From the Patriots' first stand at Lexington Green and the Concord Bridge, to the blood-soaked battlefields that saved our nation, from the treacherous trenches of Europe to the deepest waters of the Pacific and the farthest reaches of the world, our veterans have answered every call, met every threat, crushed every foe, and borne every burden of war so that our children might know every single blessing of peace and love. And soon we're going to dedicate a magnificent, triumphal arc to our veterans. And that's in honor of our great veterans and our great militaries. They've been waiting for it for 200 years. Each day at Arlington Cemetery, sometimes as often as 30 times a day, a bugler plays the sound of taps over a new grave of an American veteran. In those 24 notes. There is sadness, there is pain, but there is always pride, pride in our nation, pride in our flag. And there's never any doubt, no doubt, that our heroes served a noble cause, no doubt that they gave themselves to a righteous mission, no doubt that they had victories and won, they just won, won, won. That's what they want to do, that's what they know how to do, that's all they know how to do. The freedoms they preserved and the legacy that they secured have outlived them in so many cases, but they're looking down on us right now. And with God's help, we will do things that we've never been able to do before. Our country is becoming a far greater country than it's ever been before. So today, as one people, we say to every American veteran, the sacrifice you have We will never forget the oath that you have kept. We will never take for granted the values you fought for. We will never, we will never, ever forsake the flag you held high. We will never let it fall. And the nation you served, we will never, ever let it fail. I just want to thank everybody for being here. You're an amazing group of people. Heroes all, the families, the soldiers, the warriors, you're heroes all, and it's an honor to be your president. This is really an amazing time in our country's history. We're doing things that nobody ever thought possible. And yes, we'll have some minor setbacks. We'll handle them very nicely. But our country has never done like it's done right now, like it's doing right now. May God America's great veterans, may God bless our military and may God bless the United States of America. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.