Thank you very much, father. I hope you will have a successful trip. And these young ladies can always remedy the situation by becoming soldiers' wives, as they no doubt will in time to come, because there is hardly a young man in this country now who is not a veteran of some war. I am a veteran of a war myself, but I am too old for the purpose now.
I hope you have a most successful trip. You are doing a great thing. It's wonderful.
You know, it is the inclination of our people to neglect things that are not on the biggest scale in the world. And I fear very much that our servicemen in Korea have been somewhat neglected, on conditions like you are trying to remedy. And I am so glad that you are going over there to remedy them, because what those young men are doing over there is keeping us out of a condition which would otherwise be all-out. They are helping to prevent a third world war, and their morale is great. They are wonderful people. They have kept us out of a third world war so far, and I think they are going to keep us out entirely.
So, when you go over there, you give them my greetings, and tell them that there is one man in the United States who appreciates entirely what they are doing.
Note: The President spoke at 12:15 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White House. In his opening words he referred to Rev. Gilbert V. Hartke, O.P. head of the Speech and Drama Department at Catholic University and one of the founders of Players, Inc.
Harry S Truman, Remarks to Members of a Catholic University Dramatic Group Leaving for Korea Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/231495
