It’s entirely possible that I’m misunderstanding this guy (DW seems to think so). Therefore I thought I would get some other opinions.

In an effort to clarify something I thought I heard President Obama say in his commencement speech at Arizona State University, I found a couple of different trancripts. Here’s one.

It seems Obama went off script in sevaral places because the transcripts I find are missing quite a few things that I heard in the You Tube video. I noticed this because the particular part I wanted to read was missing in the transcript. The transcript is described “as prepared for delivery” so I assume that is what he walked on stage with and didn’t have his teleprompter.

Now rather than just repeat every idiotic thing he said, I would like to know if anyone else takes this particular comment as a serious slap at our soldiers.

The transcript reads:

“We’ve become accustomed to the title of “military super-power,” forgetting the qualities that earned us that title – not just a build-up of arms, or accumulation of victories, but the Marshall Plan, the Peace Corps, our commitment to working with other nations to pursue the ideals of opportunity, equality and freedom that have made us who we are.”

What is missing in the transcript is he points out that in addition to forgetting about the power of our weapons, our men and women in uniform have forgotten discipline, valor and code of conduct. 

I will link the video (not sure how to embed. The paragraph in question starts at 5:40)

Having heard this several times, I am either way off base or he is.