Proclamation 6754

By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation

Military families play an integral role in ensuring the effectiveness of America's Armed Forces. Without fanfare, they selflessly provide behind-the-scenes support to service members, their units, and commands worldwide. Their devotion to their loved ones, to the military, and to their country is unfaltering.

Time and again, military families bravely bid farewell as wives and husbands, children and parents depart for missions in far-off, often hostile areas. Committed to preserving freedom and democracy for all of us, these families provide the continuity and stability essential to the well-being of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and the members of our Coast Guard, National Guard, and Reserves.

Military families face abrupt separations, moves to foreign soil, and tours in isolated locations away from friends. As they adjust to conditions around the world, they learn to do without many of the conveniences that most Americans view as basics. They quickly and adeptly transform unfamiliar quarters into welcoming homes, forming bonds of friendship with others in the unit, sharing in their hopes, dreams, and aspirations.

Commanders and other Department of Defense leaders have long recognized the paramount importance of families in the retention and readiness of military members. Indeed, America reaps invaluable benefits from the dedication of military families as they support America's mission to promote democracy and to secure peace.

Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim November 21, 1994, as "National Military Families Recognition Day." I call upon all Americans to join in honoring military families throughout the world and in recognizing their integral role in supporting the men and women who defend the cause of freedom at home and abroad. I ask Federal, State, and local officials and private organizations to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this fourth day of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and nineteenth.

William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 11:18 a.m., November 7, 1994]