But Communism died this year.  Even as President, with the most fascinating possible vantage point, there were times when I was so busy helping to manage progress and lead change that I didn’t always show the joy that was in my heart But the biggest thing that has happened in the world in my life, in our lives, is this:  By the grace of God, America won the Cold War.  And there’s another to be singled out, though it may seem inelegant.  I mean a mass of people called the American taxpayer.  No ever thinks to thank the people who pay country’s bill or an alliance’s bill.  But for a half Century now, the American people have shouldered the burden and paid taxes that were higher than they would have been to support a defense that was bigger than it would have been if imperial communism had never existed.  But it did.  But it doesn’t anymore.  And here is a fact I wouldn’t mind the world acknowledging:  The American taxpayer bore the brunt of the burden, and deserves a hunk of the glory.

And so, now, for the first time in 35 years, our strategic bombers stand down.  No longer are they on round-the-clock alert.  Tomorrow our children will go to school and study history and how plants grow.  And they won’t have, as my children did, air-raid drills in which they crawl under their desks and cover their heads in case of nuclear war.  My grandchildren don’t have to do that, and won’t have the bad dreams children once had in decades past.  There are still threats.  But the long drawn-out dread is over.

A year ago tonight I spoke to you at a moment of high peril.  American forces had just unleashed Operation Desert Storm.  And after 40 days in the desert skies and 4 days on the ground, the men and women of America’s armed forces and our allies accomplished the goals that I declared, and that you endorsed:  we liberated Kuwait.

Soon after, the Arab world and Israel sat down to talk seriously, and comprehensively, about peace, an historic first.  And soon after that, at Christmas, the last American hostages came home.  Our policies were vindicated.

Much good can come from the prudent use of power.  And much good can come from this:  A world once divided into two armed camps now recognizes one sole and pre-eminent power, the United States of America.  And this they regard with no dread.  For the world trusts us with power, and the world is right.  They trust us to be fair, and restrained.  They trust us to be on the side of decency.  They trust us to do what’s right.

I use those words advisedly.  A few days after the war began, I received a telegram from Joanne Speicher, the wife of the first pilot killed in the gulf, Lieutenant Commander Scott Speicher.  Even in her grief, she wanted me to know that some day, when her children were old enough, she would tell them “that their father went away to war because it was the right thing to do”.  She said it all.  It was the right thing to do.

And we did it together.  There were honest differences here, in this chamber.  But when the war began, you put your partisanship aside and supported our troops.  This is still a time for pride, but this is no time to boast.  For problems face us, and we must stand together once again and solve them—­and not let our country down.