Quotations About Homeland Defense

"Many Americans need no convincing that the blessings of freedom carry the price of responsibility. They only need to hear a call to action. The calls that have come from Opperman, Gambone and Gehrz should be picked up by others -- mayors, sheriffs, legislators and a governor."
-- Star Tribune editorial, 11/23/01

"We also will encourage service to country by creating new opportunities within the AmeriCorps and Senior Corps programs for public safety and public health efforts.  We'll ask state and local officials to create a new modern civil defense service similar to local volunteer fire departments, to respond to local emergencies when the manpower of governments is stretched thin.  We will find ways to train and mobilize more volunteers to help when rescue and health emergencies arise."

"Americans have a lot to offer, so I've created a task force to develop additional ways people can get directly involved in this war effort, by making our homes and neighborhoods and schools and workplaces safer.  And I call on all Americans to serve by bettering our communities and, thereby, defy and defeat the terrorists."
-- President Bush, 11/08/01, Address to the Nation

"It's called Homeland Security. While the effort will begin here, it will require the involvement of America at every level. Everyone in the homeland must play a part. I ask the American people for their patience, their awareness and their resolve. There are some things we can do immediately, and we will. Others will take more time. But we will find something for every American to do. My friends in the Army Corps of Engineers remind me of their motto -- Secretary Powell's familiar with it -- The difficult, we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer."
-- Director Ridge, 10/28/01, Office of the Press Secretary

"Americans hunger for patriotic service to the nation, but do not see ways to personally make a difference....What is lacking today is not a need for patriotic service, nor a willingness to serve, but the opportunity…because duty, honor, and country are values that transcend ideology. National service, both civilian and military, can embody the virtues of patriotism that conservatives cherish."

"More than a decade ago, the patron saint of modern conservatism, William F. Buckley, Jr., offered an eloquent and persuasive conservative case for national service. In the book Gratitude, Buckley wrote, 'Materialistic democracy beckons every man to make himself a king; republican citizenship incites every man to be a knight. National service, like gravity, is something we could accustom ourselves to, and grow to love.'"
--Senator John McCain, 10/01, The Washington Monthly

"It is clear that American citizens are the target of choice of international terrorists. Americans comprise only about 5 percent of the world's population. However, according to State Department statistics, during the decade of the 1990's, 36 percent of all worldwide terrorist acts were directed against U.S. interests.”
Attorney General John Ashcroft, 05/09/01, Testimony Delivered to a Joint Senate Committee

"We need a department of Homeland Security. We've got to defend our homeland, because we have a great Navy and a great Army and a great Marine Corps and a great Air force. But when it comes to defending America from terrorists, they can respond for us, be here in this country, defending against people like we are dealing with, that is not what we need. We need other formulations."
--Warren Rudman, Former U.S. Senator on CNN's Larry King Live, 10/09/01

"The combination of unconventional weapons proliferation with the persistence of international terrorism will end the relative invulnerability of the U.S. homeland to catastrophic attack."

"National Homeland security Agency would not only protect American lives, but also assume responsibility for overseeing the protection of the nation's critical infrastructure, including information technology."

"New priorities also need to be set for the U.S. armed forces in light of the threat to the homeland. We urge, in particular, that the National Guard be given homeland security as a primary mission, as the U.S. Constitution itself ordains. The National Guard should be reorganized, trained, and equipped to undertake that mission."
--Road Map for National Security: Imperative for Change, The Phase III Report, 02/15/01