* Says ending Iraq, Afghanistan wars allows U.S. to refocus
* U.S.-China relationship critical with trade booming
* Salutes brave choices of “9/11 generation” soldiers
By Laura MacInnis
WASHINGTON, May 26 (Reuters) – Most of the cadets who
graduated on Saturday from West Point were in elementary school
when hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center and Pentagon on
Sept. 11, 2001, and enrolled in the U.S. military academy with
wars raging in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Vice President Joe Biden lauded the brave choices of the
Class of 2012 – and their so-called “9/11 generation” – with a
commencement address focused on the United States’ new foreign
policy challenges including cyber threats and a rising China.
He noted that nearly 3 million young Americans joined the
military after the al Qaeda attacks, knowing they were likely to
be sent into battle in remote parts of Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Hundreds of thousands of you have laced up those combat
boots and walked across those barren deserts and snow-capped
mountains,” he said in remarks that were also beamed live to the
U.S. Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan as well as the White House
press room.
But Biden, whose eldest son Beau served in Iraq as a captain
in the Delaware National Guard and was in the audience at West
Point, said Saturday’s graduates would have to focus on a new
set of threats, with the Iraq war over and Afghanistan’s ending.
Continued…
