While speaking at the commencement ceremony for the U.S. Naval Academy President Barack Obama told graduates that they will be responsible in restoring America's faith in the military after the recent sexual assault scandals, according to the Wall Street Journal.
"Those who commit sexual assaults are not only committing a crime, they threaten the trust and discipline that make our military strong," Obama said in his commencement address. "They've got no place in the greatest military on Earth."
Obama was addressing the academy for the second time under a light drizzle. Obama used the platform to directly speak to the slightly over one thousand graduating officers and to convince them to use their positions of power to eliminate the current military culture that has allowed sexual assault to become so rampant, according to The New York Times.
"We need your honor, that inner compass that guides you," Obama said. "Even more than physical courage, we need your mental courage - the strength to do what's right, even when it's unpopular."
One day after giving a major speech regarding the continued use of drones the president spoke about the transitional phase that the U.S. military finds itself in currently. As the military winds down from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan it must also find a way to protect against potential terrorist threats developing in multiple areas of the world, according to The New York Times.
"We still need to conduct precise, targeted strikes against our terrorists before they kill our citizens," Obama said. "We need to stay ready for the whole range of threats."
The ceremony lacked a little of the panache that it has had in previous years due to some of the budget cuts in Washington. The sequestration made it so the aerobatic fighter squad, The Blue Angels, wouldn't be able to perform at the ceremony as is their tradition, according to the Associated Press.
Lawmakers in Washington have recently been concentrating their efforts to introduce a bill that would help eliminate the prevalence of sexual assault in the military. Finding a solution to this issue should continue to be a top priority of the administration going forward. The president's remarks regarding the sexual assault problem were consistent with his remarks in a press conference last month.
"If we find out somebody is engaging in this stuff, they've got to be held accountable - prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged," Obama said. "Period. It's not acceptable."
