The Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. James C. McConville hosted the Promotion Ceremony in honor of Maj. Gen. Ronald J. Place, Director, Defense Health Agency in the Pentagon Auditorium.
Transcript
Good morning and welcome to the promotion ceremony in honor of Major General Ronald J. Place. Our host for today’s ceremony is the Chief of Staff of the Army, General James C. McConville. Please stand for the arrival of the official party and remain standing for the singing of the national anthem by Sergeant Christopher Norwood and the invocation delivered by Brigadier General Sheila Baxter, United States Army, Retired.
Oh say, can you see By the dawn’s early light What so proudly we hailed At the twilight’s last gleaming Whose broad stripes and bright stars Through the perilous fight O’er the ramparts we watched Were so gallantly streaming And the rocket’s red glare The bombs bursting in air Gave proof through the night That our flag was still there Oh say does that star-spangled Banner yet wave O’er the land of the free And the home of the brave
Let us pray. Almighty and gracious God. We thank you for your love, peace and presence here this morning as we gather to witness and to celebrate the promotion of Ronald Place to the rank of Lieutenant General. Our hearts are filled with joy for him and his family. You have prepared him for this day and blessed him with special trust. Because promotions come from you. As we remember that to whom much is given, much is required. We ask you to direct his steps and give him and his team the strength and wisdom to carry out his new responsibilities of leading the Defense Health Agency. Anoint him and be with him in this exciting journey. We ask all of these blessings in your most holy Name, amen.
Amen Please be seated. Ladies and gentlemen, General McConville. (audience applauding)
Well, well, good morning and welcome and it’s a great day in the Army. And it’s a great day in the Army ’cause we’re gonna promote a great officer, General Ron Place to Lieutenant General. And it’s a great day for the military and it’s a great day for the Department of Defense because earlier today our Ron was sworn in as the Director of the Defense Health Agency, which is an incredibly important job that’s gonna be responsible for really transforming the way we do military medicine in the future. And I can think of no better officer to lead that organization. You know, it’s interesting, a lot of times people ask me questions of why you should join the Army or join the military, and I tell them it’s because of purpose, belonging, and opportunity for a pathway to success. And then I look at Ron Place, and I go, what better purpose could you have in life than serving your country as an officer and serving your fellow man and woman as a doctor? What could be a greater purpose? I know of no greater purpose. And we talk about belonging. What better organization to belong to than the most respected institution in the country, United States military, United States Army. And then you know, why should you join the military, why should you join? Well it’s a pathway to success. And if you know Ron’s story, it starts in Huron, South Dakota. And if you know anything about that town, and I didn’t know much about it, but it’s 50 miles from where the Little House on the Prairie was actually filmed, the original, so that is a true story. That’s, mom and dad, right? So I’m straight on that one. That is a true story. But the ability to go, to come in the military, to get the training and to go to medical school and then rise to the top of your profession, where does it get any better than that? So it is a pathway to success. And he’s with his wife, Carol, today. They just celebrated their 33rd anniversary, is that correct? How about a hand for them? (audience applauding) And they met in college, one of the things I like about doing this, I get to find out the inside story. Everyone has a story, this is a great story. They’re at the same college, different dorms, and I was reading this originally, I go, hey, wait a minute, you guys shared a dorm? Not quite, didn’t quite read that way. But they actually were in separate dorms but they shared a common dorm area. And it was ping-pong and pool that brought them together as a couple, so we’re very blessed, that’s where they met. They fell in love, they started this family and they’ve been together since college students through this great journey that we call the United States Army and now the Director of the Defense Health Agency. And if you know what our officers and spouses go through, Carol, thank you for all you’ve done. I mean, it’s just amazing. When you look at, and I’m gonna talk a little about your kids in a second, because it is really an incredible family, but holding, you know, this whole family together through multiple changes of station, living all over the United States and then in Europe and just doing all the things that you’ve done, just so appreciative and I know Ron is appreciative of what you’ve done, but I want to say on behalf of the Army, we are very appreciative. How about a hand for Carol. (audience applauding) And Ron’s children are here so I want to kind of go through. Is Jeffrey and his wife, Danielle, you’re here all the way from South Dakota, thank you for coming. And they are both school teachers. And so (audience applauding) Yeah, so you guys see a theme in this family, and I’m gonna come to Bob and Carol later, the parents, but this is a theme in this family about service. About serving others, and in, that’s the first part of it. And his daughter, Veronica’s here. And Veronica’s right there and she also served in the military, deployed to Estonia and Afghanistan and she’s married to Captain Matt Wyatt, who is right there. And he is a lawyer and he’s deployed in support of Third Special Forces Group and they’re stationed at Fort Bliss right now. And Harrison, is just, he’s right there. Captain in the United States Army. 2015 graduate of the United States Military Academy. And he’s at the Captain’s Career Course at Fort Benning. And so I know they’re very very proud of their kids and I want to thank you for helping us with that recruiting goal. We’ve had a little problem with that right now (audience laughing) and for the rest of you all out there who have kids, we are hiring, you know. (audience laughing) there is an opportunity, you know. And the other thing is too, Ron’s getting promoted but there’s also some other big things going on. Where’s Asher? Asher’s right there, you just started first grade, right? Big deal, that’s a big deal. And then Delaney, Weston and Charlie recently started preschool. Right? And where’s Charlie? Right there? You just turned three, right? So happy birthday, how about a big hand for Charlie? (audience applauding) And I want to recognize a few more of Ron’s family. His parents, Bob and Carol, are here, Bob and Carol. Thank you, I mean, you got to be real proud of your legacy that’s sitting here in the front row. Ron’s brothers, where’s Tom, is Tom here? Tom’s right there. And Mike is right over there, many of you know them and wife, Jackie is here, okay. And we got mother-in-law, Darlene, right there. And we got sister-in-law, I hope I’m not gonna slaughter this name, but, is it Twyla? Close enough? Twyla? With a Boston accent, not bad, okay, we’ll give it a shot, you know. This is an extraordinary family and I just want to thank mom and dad. You ought to be just extremely proud of, what you all did, we need to bottle, for some reason out in South Dakota, you had this, you know, this medicine that you inculcated a theme of service in all your kids. And, you know, it’s just absolutely amazing. And, I think many, you know, that Ron’s, all his brothers are doctors so everyone’s a doctor, you know. I got to run through this ’cause it’s pretty cool when you start thinking about it, so. You got Tom’s a doctor, so he’s retired right now, he served in Desert Storm. His wife Suzie’s a doctor, right? So she’s a doctor. Their son is currently serving as a Air Force physician, is that right? There’s always one rebel in every family, you know? (audience laughing) But hey, we’ll take him. And then,
[Audience Member] Aim high.
Aim high, there we go. Joint, we’re all joint. And Mike, everyone knows who Mike is. Army physician, served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s current Commander General of Regional Health Command Atlantic. And then Mike’s wife was an operating room technician too, so I mean, just think about the contributions that this family’s made. So I’ve kind of taken the Place family, okay, you’re all in the service, you’re a soldier or an isolated case, an airman, you’re in the medical field or you’re a teacher. And I just think that’s absolutely incredible. What, let’s give them a hand for the family. (audience applauding) And I know there’s many friends and I know we’ve got a lot of folks here from South Dakota, and we appreciate that. But just a couple of things before we actually get the promotion. About Ron. And you know Ron’s an interesting senior leader because in some ways he’s a great surgeon, and if you talk to him, he actually likes being a surgeon in a lot of ways, so with our docs in a lot of ways and we asked them to do these incredible leadership jobs but at the same time they balance their skill sets as surgeons. And he’s deployed multiple times. Afghanistan, Turkey, Kosovo, and though I never had an opportunity to serve with him in combat, I’ve served with a lot of you in combat. And I know what it means, what our medical professionals, our doctors, our nurses, do every single day in combat. I saw that for 27 months in Afghanistan and when I was a Deputy Command General in the CG and spent almost every night going over to Bagram or visiting the forward surgical teams and putting purple hearts on young men and women that wouldn’t be alive today without our great medical profession so I want to just give you a hand for that, okay? (audience applauding) And I don’t think, I had more, but I think that’s what I’m gonna end it on right there. Because that just tells what a great medical profession we have in the military, and what we should never forget that the reason we have Army medicine, the reason we have military medicine, is take care of those young men and women that are serving their country in harm’s way every single day and you all do a fabulous job of that down range and then when you come back here, you take great care of our service members, our families, and our retirees, and we can never forget why we exist, okay? So let’s do that, let’s go ahead and publish some orders, okay? How about that, okay, right. (audience applauding)
Would the Place family please join General McConville and Major General Place in front of the flags? For the rest of you, please remain seated during the publishing of the orders and presentations. Attention to orders. The President of the United States has reposed special trust and confidence in the patriotism, valor, fidelity and abilities of Ronald J. Place. In view of these qualities and his demonstrated potential for increased responsibility, he is therefore promoted from Major General to Lieutenant General by order of the Acting Secretary of the Army, signed James C. McConville, General, United States Army Chief of Staff. (audience applauding) (audience laughing) (audience applauding) Thank you family members. Lieutenant General Place is now being presented his three-star flag. Ladies and gentlemen, Captain Harrison Place will reaffirm the oath of office to Lieutenant General Place.
Raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, state your name,
I Ronald J. Place
Having been appointed an officer
Having been appointed an officer
In the army of the United States
In the army of the United States
As indicated above
As indicated above
In the grade of Lieutenant General
In the grade of Lieutenant General
Do solemnly swear
Do solemnly swear
That I will support and defend
That I will support and defend
The Constitution of the United States
The Constitution of the United States
Against all enemies
Against all enemies
Foreign and domestic
Foreign and domestic
That I will bear true faith
That I bear true faith
And allegiance to the same
And allegiance to the same
That I take this obligation freely
I take this obligation freely
Without any mental reservation
Without any mental reservation
Or purpose of evasion
Or purpose of evasion
And that I will well and faithfully
That I will well and faithfully
Discharge the duties
Discharge the duties
Of the office upon which I am about to enter
Of the office upon which I am about to enter
So help me God.
So help me God. (audience applauding)
I can’t stop them, they love you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, Lieutenant General Ronald J. Place. (audience cheering) (audience applauding)
Well good morning ladies and gentlemen. I truly, Carol and I can’t thank you enough for being here today. This is a big day for our family. I’ll get into that just a little bit more, General McConville touched on it some, I’ll go a little bit deeper. So thanks for being here to host this ceremony. Most of you don’t know that he’s within his first four weeks, or four weeks and a day of being Chief of Staff of the Army, and yet despite all the other things he has going on he’s spending two hours with us here this morning. Sir, thank you very much for hosting this ceremony. (audience applauding) Thanks also to Secretary Peake, sir. I’ll get into a little bit later, my comments from when he was the Madigan commander and I was the chief resident at Madigan. Sir, thanks for following my career and thanks for being here today. Thanks also to General Piatt, I saw him earlier, I don’t know if he made it in, and General Semons, thanks for coming, and General Hogg, thanks for coming. Mr. McCaffrey, thanks for being here today. Couple of retired now mentors also in the audience. Lieutenant General Retired Horoho and my mentor for at least 10 years. I’ll get into that a little bit in my comments, and General Robb as well, first director of the DHA, sir, thanks for your continuing service through volunteer organizations, through the Uniformed Services University you continue to show us what leadership looks like. Thank you, sir. Flag officers, general officers, admirals, everybody else, if I spend all morning going through all of you, you’re gonna get bored before I even get to my comments so thank you for being here, all of you. My hope is that I’ll be a little bit faster and funnier so you don’t get too bored with this. Truly, a who’s who of Army military medical leadership are here today. Thanks also to another former mentor of mine, General Baxter, ma’am, thank you for that wonderful invocation. Command Major Retired Brady, thanks for being our narrator today. How about giving up a little bit for Sergeant Norwood for his a capella singing of the national anthem? (audience applauding) And thanks also to Staff Sergeant Walker, I don’t know where she went, proffering for me.
I’m right here sir.
Over there, good, thank you for proffering for me today. And then finally, I don’t see them but they’re probably in the back, yep, Mr. Cantee, Mr. Walker, the entire protocol team who set all these things up. I know I’ve already asked you specifically, give a round of applause for Sergeant Norwood, but how about for all of them who did all this today, please. (audience applauding) So, I’d like to talk a little bit about teams. For those of you who’ve heard me give this specific discussion before, please indulge me. But I’d all of you to think of your favorite team. Not who it is, Chief, I know who yours are, but think about why they’re your favorite team. And without asking about yours now, I’ll tell you about my two favorite teams. Because they’re both well represented here today and the absolute reason that this ceremony’s happening. My favorite teams are my family and the Army. And related to the Army, military medicine. And they’re sort of intertwined, but those are my two favorite teams. Because the teams that you’re on are infinitely more important than those that you cheer for. And because life’s a story I’m compelled to thank at least some of those key characters while admitting up front that I’ll forget somebody, in particular thousands who aren’t here today, those I’ve served with, those I’ve deployed with, those I’ve operated on, those I’ve lost. So I ask you to sit back, relax, think about who helped you to your success as I attempt to say thank you. This promotion is positively a result of every single one of you in this room and hundreds, and again I’ll wager at least thousands not here. I’ll start with my parents. Growing up in farms in rural South Dakota, they had a hard life. And through their efforts provided a much better life for my brothers and for me. They taught us about hard work, about character, about values, about education and about morality. And did I mention that they taught us about hard work? (audience laughing) They also taught us about loyalty and fidelity and Chief mentioned our anniversary. My parents just celebrated their 58th wedding anniversary a few weeks ago. (audience applauding) Many of you know my brother Mike, but most of you don’t know my older brother Tom. Again, Chief mentioned him a little bit, it took both of us, Mike and me, to counter him in just about everything that we did. He led the way in more ways than he knows as a physics genius and a Rhodes Scholar regional winner, former Army radiologist, he’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. Tom, thanks for being here today, thanks for being a great brother. Again, most of you know Mike, the other me. We’ve been great friends for our entire lives, teammates in baseball, in cross-country, Boy Scouts, debate, band, choir, you name it, we did it together to include best man at our wedding, godfather for each other’s children, I can’t imagine a tighter bond. But here’s the thing. I’m still a little bit anxious actually, that I’m getting credit for his accomplishments and somehow I got promoted and really this was supposed to be him. Seriously, Mike, thanks for the support that you and Jackie have given our family for decades, and thanks for being here today. I’d also like to thank Carol’s family. Her mom Darlene, and Darlene’s late husband, Robert. True strength of America, they spent their entire lives managing a family farm in rural South Dakota. While raising four superb daughters. In addition (throat clearing), boy this is starting way earlier than I thought. (audience laughing) In addition, they provided wonderful support to Carol and me in every way possible. To include being the home base for our kids while they were in college, Carol’s sisters represented here today with her oldest sister, Twyla, incredibly supportive in every single one of our moves, in every single one of my deployments. Heck, even for our daughter’s deployment. The entire Cooney clan have been willing participants in our Army experience, visiting every duty station, and reminding us of the positives. Thanks Darlene, Twyla and your whole family. For this event, we’re welcoming several more of our extended family. My aunt Marlene, my cousin Michelle Stemper, her daughter and her daughter Annie. My cousin, Major Dalen Dirkson, his sons Christopher and Justin. This is absolutely fantastic that you can join us for the weekend and be here for our family celebration. We have family friends here, Miss Kris Fendland, she and her husband worked for my dad since before I can remember, now retired here in Baltimore, Kris thanks for being here today as well. I’m blessed to be joined by my one of my great friends from high school in Huron. Mr. Rich Bogue, I’m absolutely confident that no one in our class anticipated my being in this position (audience laughing) so I’m thankful that you’re here to actually witness it. (audience laughing) Truly Carol and I are thankful for the opportunities that we’ve had to get together over the years and we look forward to seeing you more as you continue to come through the D.C. area. We’re also blessed to have a couple of our college clan with us today. Mr. Dan Grough and his son Michael, Mr. Mike Frederick and his wife, Sandra. My guess is that they’ll tell you that I wasn’t a whole lot of fun in college as I spent most of my time studying. Thankfully we had a great group who could convince me that there was more to life than just studies, and I’ve remained good friends to this day. While there isn’t anyone here from my medical school class, it’s important for me to thank them for their help. Medical school is hard enough, when supported with your 100 plus classmates, I can’t imagine having to go through it alone. Now it’s here really, that’s the preamble, it’s here that our Army experience started with internship and residency at Madigan Army Medical Center. While there is dozens of people who are instrumental to my education, none figured more prominently for Carol and for me than Dr. Steve and Janna Weber. I didn’t see them, Steve, Janna, there you are. The 100 plus hour work weeks, watching our kids, in particular watching the older two while Carol was in labor and delivering Harrison. The advice, the car pools, the Army experience, living in the neighborhood together, thanks for all of it. What terrific role models you’ve been for almost 30 years. It’s also at Madigan that I first saw what a medical general officer really was. From operating with now late Brigadier General John Hutton to having then Major General Peake rounding in the ICU before I got there as a surgical chief resident, it was clear to me that the bar for a medical general officer was extraordinarily high. After colorectal surgical fellowship at the University of Texas Southwestern, we’re back in the Army as a junior surgeon. Being a junior surgeon allowed me the opportunity to continue to learn and grow as a surgeon. But more importantly with truly senior mentors. It also gave me the opportunity to backfill and backfill and backfill and then deploy. And it’s truly here that our life changed. With my deployment to Oman approximately five weeks after September 11th, 2001, and subsequent four deployment with Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force South, in Kandahar, Afghanistan. A life altering event for me where I changed from being a physician who happened to be in the Army to an Army physician. And let me say, it may sound the same to many of you, I promise you it’s not. It’s an incredibly important distinction for me and it happened because of the extraordinary role models. Now you may think that’s the officers or the doctors, but it wasn’t. It was the American soldiers that I deployed with and those that I treated. No greater love hath man than he or she who’s willing to lay down their life for another. And we see that every day. I also knew that’s when we had our Army family based upon the April Fool’s joke that Carol played on our children. I’m not gonna get into it here, but if you ask any of our children about that particular joke, it wasn’t funny for them, but it was funny for Carol and me. But it was late in this tour in Afghanistan that we received notice that we’d be able to move to Landstuhl when I redeployed. While it was challenging for Carol, she made all of the plans for the overseas move while I was still deployed. It was still an awesome opportunity. To be there, the planning and preparation for OIF Surgical Chief of the primary receiving hospital for thousands of casualties and deployed three more times in support of Kosovo, OIF and then a second time to OEF in Afghanistan, again, incredible opportunity. In the hospital and in the community, we had great friends. I don’t have time to thank all of them but among the dozens of friends that we did make, Mr. Wayne Smith is here with us today. Wayne, where are you? Hey man, thanks for coming today. What an incredible impact you had on me and our family, we can’t thank you enough. And back to Madigan for the third time, begin my career as medical executive, as you can tell, I needed a lot of remedial training, kept getting sent back to Madigan. But there, Brigadier General Sheila Baxter and then Major General Horoho taught me and trusted me. General Baxter trusted me to lead the hospital, had my back when I missed the mark, and exuded professionalism. Ma’am, you still do. You’ve been a great role model for me for almost 15 years now, thanks again for being here today. Thanks for the blessing as we started this program. Then Major General Horoho’s travel schedule as the Madigan commander, the Western Regional Medical Command commanding general, the Chief of the Army Nurse Corps, and one of the few female two-star generals so always getting pulled into the Pentagon to do things here, had her on the road somewhere between three, three and a half weeks a month. Now being the acting Madigan commander in your absence, and those long conversations that occurred when doing the back brief, still resonate with me. And you know that I can never thank you enough for the mentorship and the opportunities that you gave me. We made great friends in the community as well, largely driven by his service, Colonel Retired Frank and Stacy Epolito, Stacy’s here with us today. Hi Stacy. Frank commanded the RTC Western Region, was the executive agent for LBAC when everything was happening at Fort Lewis, while Stacy worked on the Thrift Shop board of directors with Carol. Between the two of them somewhere between 25 and 30 hours a week of volunteer time. All because they wanted to give back to the community. Stacy, thanks for being here. From my time at Fort Knox and Fort Stewart as the MEDDAC commander, then Major General Don Campbell, Major General Mike Milano, then Major General Robert Abe Abrams and Lieutenant General Ben Freakley understood that MEDDAC commanders are often in their first command, and certainly I was. All took the time to help me work through what it means to command, and to command at the brigade level. And thanks as well to the great teams we had at those MEDDACs here today, Colonel Rich Malish who was with me at Fort Stewart and Lieutenant Colonel Retired Dave Wright at Fort Knox, now at Ohio State University. Gentlemen thanks for being here with us today. Thanks to my classmates at National War College, yep, did it backwards in Army medicine, sir, I did both my Oh-Six commands before I went to the War College. Specifically those in Committee Four, Mr. Brian Sample and Colonel Jim Hammersmith, I’m not sure if they’re able to get over here today. Both helping me understand the world outside of military medicine, what it means to lead at the strategic level outside of medicine. Thanks also to the OTSG staff, the Regional Health Care, Regional Health Command Atlantic staff, and National Capital Region Staff as my general officer positions, there’s way too many of you here, today for me to name you separately but I’ll just say you’re all represented by the formal, former RICA DCG and our next-door-neighbors, Brigadier General Retired and Mrs. Erik Torring. You truly polished me in ways that I hadn’t considered and prepared me for the job ahead. I can’t thank you enough for the work that you’ve done and how you’ve helped me personally, thanks for coming back all the way from Texas to be with us here today. Finally, help me, or bear with me as I thank my immediate family. I’m not sure, snafu on my part, I’m not sure the gift bags ever made it in here out of my car, looks like the answer is no. No? Okay. So that was actually gonna be my go-to thing for when I was gonna step away from the microphone, but failure on my part. Starting first with our oldest son, Jeff. His wonderful wife, Danielle, and their three children, Asher, Delaney and Everley. I’m fully cognizant of the challenges associated with being away from your jobs as public school teachers in South Dakota with three small children. I’m also appreciative of your presence throughout the years. The challenge associated with all of our family’s moves, and in particular, those late teen years, that are hard for everybody, perhaps harder for those stationed overseas. I’m proud of you Jeff, I’m proud of your entire family, thankful for your support, thanks for being here this morning. Veronica, our beautiful daughter, rock solid in support. Perhaps the hardest worker that I know, keep in mind I told you how hard we had to work when we were kids, Signal Corp officer, optimistic, loving, tough, wonderful mother, you’ve been amazing and I could not be more proud of you. To top things off, I don’t think I could have chosen as well as you did bringing Matt into our family. And specifically bringing Weston, Charlotte, and just a couple of more months, Reagan. We’re looking forward to her as being our newest bonus. In a couple of months, who am I kidding, your mom’s ready to go back with you to El Paso to be with you, ready to help you at a moment’s notice with your delivery and recovery. I love you, thank you sweetie. Harrison, with all the right stuff, a practitioner of the honor code, even before you went to West Point. Now an Armor and Calvary officer, perhaps the funniest person I know. Loyal, tough, determined, running partner, triathlete, I’m proud of you, I love you and I want you to know just how much I know you’ve supported me all these years. Thank you. This is really when I wanted a gift bag. (audience laughing) Carol, what can I say that I haven’t already told you. As a recovering general surgeon, most of you haven’t experienced the arrogance that she’s seen. You polished my rough edges, kept me from getting in my own way, provided a true home no matter where we were in the world, even if I wasn’t there. And smiled and laughed and called it an adventure. I truly don’t know how I got so lucky. As the Chief mentioned, while I feel blessed celebrating our 33rd anniversary a few weeks ago, let me remind you that’s not nearly long enough. Thanks for being my life partner, my one true love, and keeping things real, while I keep them legal. I apologize for the length of my remarks and to all those who’ve helped mold me to what you see today, at least the good parts. Those that could still be improved, those are mine. I am truly thankful to each and every one of you who made this ceremony priority just after a busy holiday weekend, the start of school, thanks for sharing the morning with us today. And in a broad sense, thanks for all the key characters in the story of my life and are responsible, truly responsible for any success that I have. God bless each and every one of you here today. God bless our soldiers, our sailors, our airmen, our marines and our Coast Guardsmen deployed in harm’s way. May God bless America. Army Strong. (audience applauding)
Ladies and gentlemen please remain standing for the singing of the Army Song by Sergeant Norwood. The words to the Army Song, if you need them, can be found on the back of your program. March along Sing a song We’re the Army of the free Count the brave Count the true Who have fought to victory We’re the Army and proud of our name We’re the Army and proudly proclaim First to fight for the right And to build the nation’s might And the Army goes rolling along Proud of all we have done Fighting til the battle’s won And the Army goes rolling along Then it’s hi-hi-hey The Army’s on its way Count off the cadence loud and strong For where we go You will always know That the Army goes rolling along
Ladies and gentlemen please join in congratulating Lieutenant General Place and his family in the receiving line. He invites you to join him for a reception immediately following in the hallway outside. Thank you for your attendance today, this concludes today’s ceremony.