Speech

Remarks by Ambassador Joseph A. Mussomeli, "A Fourth of July Salute to Cambodia"

U.S. Embassy Phnom Penh
July 4, 2007

On July 4 we celebrate all that is good and right about America.  I always eagerly look forward to this day as a good excuse to indulge myself, to drink a little more than I should, eat a lot more than I should, and just generally feel good.  But because this is a day of celebration we often forget how we got to this day, -- all the suffering and all the struggling that others went through just so we can call ourselves Americans.  On this day we tend to forget those who lost their lives for us: Washington’s battered, frozen troops at Valley Forge; the corpses piled high on the battlefields of Gettysburg, Antietam, and elsewhere.  We forget the factory workers at Hershey’s candy factory, or railway workers in Chicago, or coal miners in West Virginia beaten and killed by armed gangs and police.  We also forget the students, journalists, civil rights marchers, and many others who have fought for and died defending justice, freedom, and equality throughout the world.  It is hard to remember all those who have sacrificed for us on such a festive day.

And then I think of where we are today.  Cambodia.  A land, a country, a people too much forgotten by the rest of the world.  Has there ever been a country that has endured so much pain and injustice?  Have there ever been people who have suffered more for less reason than Cambodians?  Is there any country anywhere in the world that deserves a better future than Cambodia?  After all the killings, and bombings, and incursions by foreign armies, after all the civil strife and civil wars, after the dismantling of a great and ancient culture by a barbarous regime, I am in wonder and admiration of the Cambodian people.  Here is a people that really understands suffering, that has withstood tragedies that are barely comprehensible to those of us who have been lucky enough to be born elsewhere in the world.  How can one not admire the resilience of the Cambodian people?  How can one not stand in awe of a people who are working so hard to bring themselves back from the hell of their recent past? 

So tonight, even as we celebrate America’s Independence Day and our own heroic struggles, I would like to toast our Cambodian guests and celebrate their courage, their strength, and their compassion.  To His Royal Majesty King Sihamoni, to the Royal Cambodian government, and especially to the Cambodian people, we wish you the five Buddhist blessings and sincerely pray that Cambodia will have a future of peace, prosperity, justice, and joy.