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08/06/2022 06:34 PM EDT
Wendy R. Sherman, Deputy Secretary of State
Honiara, Solomon Islands
Skyline Ridge
DEPUTY SECRETARY SHERMAN: Good morning. Minister for Police, National Security and Correctional Services Veke… Ministers of the Crown, Members of Parliament, esteemed representatives of Guadalcanal and Solomon Islands…
Ambassadors, High Commissioners, and distinguished members of the diplomatic corps and international organizations…
Distinguished representatives of the governments and armed forces of Australia, New Zealand, and Japan…
Lieutenant General Rudder, Lieutenant General Sklenka, Vice Admiral Tiongson, Lieutenant General Smith, Major General Watson, Major General Ryan, Rear Admiral Kilian, Commissioner Pettigrew… all of you…
Welcome guests… visitors… descendants… and the people of Solomon Islands…
Eighty years ago today, thousands of U.S. Marines landed here on Guadalcanal and on the islands of Tulagi and Gavutu-Tanambogo.
It was the first major Allied land offensive in the Pacific theater, and a proving ground for the United States Marine Corps’ new methods of amphibious warfare.
With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy for us gathered here today to recognize the Battle of Guadalcanal as a turning point in the Pacific theater, and indeed in the Second World War.
But for the Marines patrolling the dense and humid jungle, who had to be wary of both enemy snipers and crippling disease… for the sailors who fought terrifying night battles in the seas around these islands… for the airmen who engaged in countless dogfights in the skies above… the future was unknown and unknowable.
In so many ways, their world had already been turned upside down. They had put their ordinary lives aside. They dropped out of school, closed down their shops, quit their jobs, kissed their children good-bye.
At a time when many Americans never left their hometowns—let alone the country—new recruits boarded ships for places thousands of miles away, some of which they had never even heard of before the war.
And in many of those places—like here in Solomon Islands—civilians saw their world upended as well, as bombs and mortars fell on their towns and villages, destroying the lives of innocents.
Over more than six months of fighting, some 1,600 Allied troops were killed. More than 4,000 were wounded, and thousands more died from disease. Among Imperial Japanese forces, an estimated 24,000 died. And no one—no one—can say for certain how many Solomon Islanders lost their lives when their home became a battlefield.
Today—as we have been every day since the war ended—former combatants are united here as partners in peace.
We have built schools and clinics together. Conducted scientific research together. Shared vaccines to combat the pandemic together. We have helped each other recover from natural disasters, protected each other from the impacts of climate change. We have celebrated and mourned and grown together. And above all—forged in the experience of the Second World War and made deeper with each passing year—we have built profound and enduring ties with each other, as one Pacific family.
President Biden has made solidarity with the Pacific Islands a priority for his entire administration from the very beginning. That is why Secretary Blinken chose Fiji as the place where he released our Indo-Pacific Strategy earlier this year—because we see cooperation with the Pacific Islands as absolutely critical to the future of the entire region.
As Vice President Harris told the Pacific Island Forum last month, the United States is working to expand our diplomatic presence across the Pacific, including by opening embassies in Tonga, Kiribati, and right here in Solomon Islands.
We are committed to reinvesting in our relationships with our Pacific family as we work together to address the challenges of the next eight decades—and beyond.