The George Washington University
Smith Center
May 19, 2006

Celebration of Student Achievement Address 2006

By Llyod Elliott

You have all seen the ads: One little pill spells relief. Well, COMMENCEMENT spells relief---relief in several ways.

You are relieved of exams and term papers, from the searches of the library, fraternity files and the internet for those gems that fulfill academic needs; you are relieved, too, from those bothersome early morning, late afternoon and evening classes, but, most of all, you and your parents are relieved from those mountainous bills that just kept coming.

So, try breathing easier---just for a short period---before you begin putting together a pay plan for all those student loans.

But now let’s look at international affairs, the field of your choice.

For me the focus on things international came with frightening, unexpected alarm.

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon in that small town in my home state of West Virginia, where I was serving as principal of the local schools. The radio was tuned to a local station with soft music. Only half interested in the newspapers, I was just alert enough to catch the announcer when he said, “We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin: The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor.”

Yes, it was December 7, 1941, a day that President Roosevelt said “will live in infamy.”

In the ensuing four and a half years, I would visit some sixteen I foreign countries, land on unfriendly beaches, learn one foreign language and spend long nights patrolling enemy waters. Expenses were all paid by the US Navy.

Those long nights on the water gave me time to think, to worry and to hope. My focus was on the obvious: Instead of killing each other, how do we, the peoples of the world, learn to live together, in peace?

With killing and torture still with us, it would appear that we have learned little in the intervening decades.

We certainly didn’t learn from that war, and not from the wars since. And while I went back some years later to say another goodbye to shipmates left in the American Cemetery in southern Italy, I couldn’t say in the quiet of that melancholy place, that others would not, at some future date, join them.

In the meantime, thanks to the National Geographic, various international organizations, and my own desire to see more of our world, I have seen other, more friendly places.

Richard Leakey gave me and a few friends from the Geographic a tour of Olduvai Gorge, the sight of early man. Petra, Persepolis, Massada, Machu Pichu, Mt. Olives and Mt. Cook provided more views.

Yes, I had other views, as well. How about belly dancers in Cairo or opium dens in Algiers!

But the question remains: How do we learn to live together?

We have a young friend who, I believe, is on the right track. He is building schools in the most remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. His story, in short form, is that he became ill while climbing one of mountains in the area.

Rescued by native tribesmen and nursed back to health, he promised to return and build schools. Now several years later, with a foundation to promote financing, several dozen schools are up and running. His message, as I talked with him recently, is for us to learn of their culture, understand their way of life and come to know each other as fellow travellers on this shrinking planet.

For them, and for all of us, the most hopeful arena is knowledge of each other---language, music, art, history---the total culture, and, yes, religion, too.

And religion offers a particularly sad example. A human experience that should bring us together in greater love and respect, has, all too often, century after century, ripped us apart with bitterness and hate.

Germans and Italians were our enemy, some sixty plus years ago, as we made our way around the Mediterranean. But I was there through VE Day, long enough to learn that the people of both countries wanted the same things we did---peace, with the love of family and the respect of neighbors.

Returning to civilian life I went straight to a university campus, believing then as now that knowledge is the most promising route to peace.

Now you are on the diving board, ready to take that plunge.

Yes, some of that world looks dangerous and forbidding. There is reason, however, to be hopeful. More than ever before, we are one world---sharing the same neighborhood.

Before Pearl Harbor, many Americans felt that the oceans on either side, plus non-threatening neighbors to the north and south, would keep the world’s problems away.

How wrong we were. We know better now. Did you notice that just one sick bird, became an immediate concern of health authorities around the world.

You are, of course, not new to the international arena. The scholarship and research of this university has given you knowledge of the past, the present and forecast for the future. You also have, thanks to those faculty members with hands on experience, some tools with which to tackle the world’s problems. With that preparation you can help in the other great wars: those on poverty, disease, ignorance, intolerance or any of the myriad of difficulties before us.

Let me say, too, that satisfaction comes from knowing that you are helping a few---or many---to a better life. To help others is to honor them, and when you do so, respecting those of the other culture, you honor yourself as well. And, looking about, we see that honor is in short supply.

As I congratulate you, and wish you well, I thank you for allowing me to share this special occasion with you. Commencement, you will remember as the threshold to the rest of your life.

Yes, you are feeling some moments of relief, but you are also ready, and a bit anxious, to begin that next journey.

Remember that wherever you may travel, whatever you may do, the best wishes of your alma mater will be with you all the way.