Mrs. Lynne Cheney
In the weeks and months after September 11, I had so many people come up to
me and say how glad they were that George Bush and Dick Cheney were in the White
House.
I knew exactly what they meant.
These men are strong, they
are steadfast, they are exactly the leaders we need at this moment in our
history.
And let me say a word, too, about Laura Bush. She not only
reassured us in those days after the towers fell, she has been a first lady of
enormous grace and dignity, and I am honored to be her friend.
I first
met Dick Cheney when he was a teenager, quite a handsome teenager, as a matter
of fact. He had a crew cut. He played football. He was the president of our
senior class.
But while most of the boys I knew saw the charm of driving
back and forth, time and again, between the two A and W root beer stands in our
small town, Dick did not.
And when practically everybody in Casper,
Wyoming started doing the twist, I can tell you, Dick did not.
He also
spent as much time listening as he did talking, which is pretty unusual in a
teenager.
Over the years, I figured out that he was someone you could
depend on, someone you could trust, someone I wanted to have at my side through
all the hard parts of life and all the joyful ones.
He is caring and
honest, wise and kind, as our much-loved daughters will testify and our beloved
grandchildren, too.
He is also unfailingly modest.
One of our
granddaughters asked him a few months ago if he knew anyone famous, and I
treasure the fact that she didn't know he was.
Dick first entered public
life as "the gentleman from Wyoming," and he loved his ten years as our state's
congressman.
It was his privilege to serve as Secretary of Defense during
Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and it has been the highest honor for
him to serve beside our President for the past four years.
Ladies and
gentlemen, my husband, Dick Cheney, the Vice President of the United States.