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AUSA Honors First Journalist with Highest Award
10/07/2005
WASHINGTON – A man once seen nightly by millions of Americans became the first journalist to receive the Association of the United States Army’s highest award.
Tom Brokaw, former news anchor and editor for the NBC Nightly News and author of “The Greatest Generation,” was presented the 2005 George Catlett Marshall Medal Oct. 5 at the closing event of AUSA’s 51st Annual Meeting and Exposition, the George Catlett Marshall Memorial Dinner.
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| The George Catlett Marshall Medal and Citation – the Association of the United States Army’s highest award – is presented to Tom Brokaw by Nicholas D. Chabraja, chairman of AUSA’s Council of Trustees, left, and Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, USA, Ret., Association president, right, at the George C. Marshall Memorial Dinner, the culminating event of the three-day Annual Meeting and Exposition. |
The Marshall Medal is awarded annually to an individual who has exhibited “selfless service to the United States of America,” according to the association. The AUSA Council of Trustees chose Brokaw to recognize him for his lifetime contributions as a journalist, reporter, editor, broadcaster and author.
A seven-time Emmy recipient, Brokaw has also hosted “Today,” “The Brokaw Report,” the prime-time news magazine “Now” with Katie Couric, “Dateline NBC,” “Tom Brokaw Reports,” and numerous special reports and documentaries, to include “The Road to Baghdad.” He was a White House correspondent and has authored many articles, essays and commentaries.
“For over 40 years, Tom Brokaw has been part of our lives as he brought the world news into our homes – with objectivity, accuracy and integrity,” said Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, USA, Ret. And AUSA’s president. “Throughout his career, Mr. Brokaw has been there for our American service men and women, especially in recent years as our sons and daughters – in service to our nation and the free world – fight the difficult and frustrating global war on terrorism.
Sullivan noted that Brokaw had traveled to the mountainous and barren terrain of Afghanistan where he reported on the hunt for al Qaeda with soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division; that he was the first to report that the war in Iraq had begun; while embedded in a Humvee with soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division, and that he had he told the American people and the world about the dangers our troops face as they patrol the streets of Baghdad and that he had interviewed our military leaders and told the story of our efforts to rebuild and bring democracy to the war-torn country of Iraq.
“It is fitting,” Sullivan said, “that this year’s Marshall Medal to Mr. Brokaw follows the presentation of the 2004 award to the American Soldier.”
“Whether sitting behind the anchor desk at NBC world headquarters in New York, trudging through the mountains of Afghanistan with our soldiers or riding in a Humvee on the streets of Baghdad patrolling with our troops, Tom Brokaw has served the American people, our armed forces, the men and women in uniform and their families with remarkable devotion, professionalism and honesty,” Sullivan said. “He is a reporter’s reporter.”
Brokaw is equally known and respected for his telling the story of an earlier generation of Americans fighting for their country. He is the author of the bestselling 1998 book, “The Greatest Generation,” which told the story of those Americans who grew up during the Great Depression of the 1930s and who then fought and won World War II. He followed this book with two more recounting the experiences of World War II veterans and their families: “The Greatest Generation Speaks” in 1999 and “An Album of Memories” in 2001.
Brokaw exhibited his well-known wit as he started to address the audience following the presentation of the Marshall Medal. From somewhere in the audience of more than 3,200 came a “We love you, Tom!”
“Thanks, Mom,” Brokaw said.
Referring to his books on the World War II generation, Brokaw said there had been those who had challenged all that he had credited to “the Greatest Generation,” the men and women who had won the Second World War and then gone on to rebuild American.
“That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it,” he said to rousing applause.
Brokaw said that the country had summoned those men and women and they had gone off to fight on six of the seven continents of the globe. Then they came home and became leaders in art, industry, science and government and all other aspects of American society.
He praised the man whose name was on the medal just bestowed on him, calling Gen. of the Army George C. Marshall “the single most underappreciated American of the 20th Century – maybe of all time. He was a warrior, a diplomat and a visionary.”
“I am deeply humbled by this award,” he said. “I am also pleasantly surprised to learn I’m the first journalist to receive this.”
He remarked that as surprising as it may seem to many in the audience, soldiers and journalists really do have the same DNA. They are both also patriots.
Speaking of those he has reported on so often, he said that “in distant places at this hour, there are young men and women in uniform on duty – in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Baghdad.”
“Keep them in our heart and minds at all times,” Brokaw said.
Brokaw then talked about a conference he had attended in which a group of Army lieutenant colonels briefed the leading figures in American business on their experiences commanding troops in Iraq. He said they had done an outstanding job and that they had totally enthralled their audience.
Afterwards, the business elites had treated the Army officers like they were rock stars, Brokaw said. Many of them had also berated him and the other media representatives at this conference for not telling the story that these officers had just presented.
The next day, Brokaw recounted, he told the businessmen that the story of successes and sacrifices had been told by the media and that those most interested in hearing it – the families and loved ones of the soldiers and the communities from which the soldiers came – had heard it. The fact that these elites had not heard of this stories until the lieutenant colonels had come to personally tell them was troubling to Brokaw.
“These officers were exceptional,” Brokaw said, “but they’re not the exception.”
“This country has the finest military in the history of mankind,” he continued, “one fully made up of volunteers. No institution is as representative of this great immigrant nation than the military.”
Yet just how good the Army is, who are the men and women who comprise it, what it is doing every day and what it costs to achieve all that is asked of it was unknown to America’s elites.
“That is unacceptable and dangerous to a democratic society,” Brokaw said.
He recalled how all members of the Greatest Generation had been asked to contribute to the conflict being waged by the entire nation. Everyone had been called upon to make some sort of sacrifice to win the war, either by serving in uniform, working in war industries, paying higher taxes or making other sacrifices so that service men and women would lack for nothing.
Now we ask too few sacrifices at the civilian level, he said, except for those whose loved ones serve.
Brokaw concluded that he hoped that this would change, that our generation would rise to the level of greatness as had that earlier generation.
Then perhaps, he said, when my great, great granddaughter is ready to write her book about our generation, she will be able to say, “They, too, met the test.”
View complete text of Tom Brokaw's address.
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