Like the old soldier of the 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. Goodbye.

We don't thrive on military acts. We do them because we have to and thank God we are efficient.

I look forward to a great future for America - a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint its wealth with our wisdom its power with our purpose.

The men and women who serve in our military have won for us every hour we live in freedom sometimes at the expense of the very hours of the lifetimes they had hoped to live.

If you ask me to summarise our mission I would put it this way: We were a military regime that sought to lay the foundations for freedom and liberty in a complex society.

I have always that there ought to be some kind of mandatory national service not necessarily in the military but to show everybody that freedom isn't free that everybody has an obligation to the nation as a community.

This enemy of peace in the world today is unlike any we have seen in the past and our military is learning from and building on previous successes while carrying peace and freedom into the future.

For the past several years I have remained what others would consider underground. I did this in order to build a community of people like-minded in their desire for freedom and the right to pursue their goals and lives without being manipulated and controlled by a media protected military industrial complex with a completely different agenda.

Before Nelson Mandela was arrested in 1962 he was an angry relatively young man. He founded the ANC's military wing. When he was released he surprised everyone because he was talking about reconciliation and forgiveness and not about revenge.

You know rural Americans are a special people. Their labor puts food on our table and fuel in our gas tanks. Their service in our military sets a powerful example of leadership honor and sacrifice. Their spirit of community inspires us all.