I am closing my fifty-two years of military service. When I joined the
army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of
all my boyish hopes and dreams. The world has turned over many times
since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and
dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of
one of the most popular barracks ballads of that day which proclaimed
most proudly that old soldiers never die; they just fade away. And like
the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just
fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the
light to see that duty. Good-bye.
