Last year the program was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

U.S. Army Col. Gary Kramlich, originally from Minot, who is on the Army staff at the Pentagon, said they are deep into budgeting for 2024-2028. He said the Army is losing in the budget fights. But he said the good news is the Air Force, in what he sees, is very much directly benefiting Minot.

He said he didn’t know too much to tell “but let’s just say I see very good economic things coming to Minot on behalf of the Air Force base and all of the surrounding activities that support that. It is a good time to be here in Minot and I’m talking about looking out eight, nine, 10, 25 years into the future.”

In his address, Kramlich touched on aspects of the world situation, including Russia and China, as he sees it and what this may bode for future foreign wars.

Eloise Ogden/MDN U.S. Army Col. Gary Kramlich delivers the Veterans Day address on Thursday in the Minot Municipal Auditorium Armory.

“Our elected leaders and military leaders have clearly stated that those two countries are our most strategic competitors. They are our rivals and they are our adversaries,” he said. He said he believes it is all true.

“The same nations that didn’t like us during the Cold War and fought against us with our adversaries in Korea and Vietnam, they still don’t like us. They don’t like us a lot, and the reason is because they see the United States as the impediment to their pursuit of their national interests,” Kramlich said.

“They’re going to continue to pursue those interests by every means necessary that they have, and what we call the rules are really just U.S. inventions, in their view, to restrict those too weak to oppose us,” he said. He said this wasn’t altogether different than the way America looked at the European rules back in the 18th and 19th centuries, when America was expanding across what is now the states.

“There were countries that had claims here and we kind of tested them. We tested them in Hawaii, we tested them in California, we tested them in Texas, and it came out America was more willing to fight for this turf than they were. So we shouldn’t take it as a surprise that other people are willing to test what we’re willing to fight for,” he said.

Should we be worried about this, he asked.

Eloise Ogden/MDN Minot Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 753 Color Guard advance the colors during the Minot Veterans Day program on Thursday.

“My answer is ‘no,” Kramlich said. He said the U.S. has had global competitors before and we’ll have them in the future.

He said his views are heavily shaped by a book, “The Accidental Superpower,” written by Peter Zeihan and published in 2014. He said that book gave him a fresh perspective on what makes America great at the highest strategic level. He said what is stated in the book he feels is true for the United States and “doubly true” for North Dakota.

Kramlich said there are five attributes of this country and that any one of them makes the U.S. a global power. He said the combination of all five of them are not resident in any other place on the planet.

He said the first is water, and the United States has more navigable waterways inland and intercoastal than the rest of the world combined. He said it connects more commerce and in an easier fashion than any other country has or will ever have. It gives the U.S. a big strength in its ability to produce goods and move them around “to help our own.”

Secondly, he said, the river system flows through one of the largest contiguous areas for arable land.

“The United States never has and I don’t believe in our lifetime ever will have a shortage for food. This is something China can’t claim. They can’t claim it today and very likely not going to claim it in the future,” he said.

He said that land sits on top of an incredible, unique sources of fuel.

“The United States never has and I don’t think ever will have a shortage of energy. We have sun where we want it, we have wind where we need it – definitely true for North Dakota – and we have more nuclear fuel than we will ever, ever need. Most countries can never claim this, and it is resident underneath the ground, and that’s true in North Dakota beyond all other places,” he said.

He said one of the most unique points about the United States is it is a “settler nation.” He said this nation was created out of adventurers, outcasts, ruffians…, starting with those who came across the Bering Strait, the Vikings from Scandinavia, etc.

“This gives us an incredible strength,” he said.

Lastly, he said, “We don’t really have enemies. There is no reasonable scenario where Canada is going to cross over the St. Lawrence Seaway and take over middle America. There’s no military possibility outside of a fiction movie where somehow Canada does that. There’s no plausible way that Mexico moves across its mountainous space, gets across the Rio Grande and takes over middle America. That is an incredible luxury that we enjoy.”

He said those countries that we would call the nearest threats actually depend more on us and actually are an extension of our economy in a way that they will never try to disrupt.

“Any one of those five things would make us a global power, but the fact that we have all five of them — and they’re really not going to change in the next couple centuries in my view – says that the United States is not anywhere in a position that we need to long-term worry about,” he said.

True for the United States and North Dakota, he said, “We are the greatest generator of capital the world has ever seen. Nobody can keep up. No one can duplicate it. They just don’t have the qualities to put us where we are today.”

His final point, he said, is, “The United States must remain a good neighbor.”

Referring to Veterans Day, he said there is a more original meaning to this day that he feels still stands.

“If you go back to the 1926 declaration by Congress that dedicated Nov. 11 (as Armistice Day), you’ll find. and I quote, ‘November 11 is to be a recurring anniversary of this date with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designated to perpetuate peace through goodwill and mutual understanding between nations and with all other people,'” he said.

Kramlich said President Eisenhower renamed it Veterans Day in 1954 to include the service members from World War II and the Korean War.

“But I think this original meaning stands. Yes, we should thank veterans for their sacrifice but moreso even yet we should take this day to perpetuate goodwill with our international neighbors that prevent future wars,” he said.

“For me, that means I reach out to my comrades from other countries from NATO, from Australia, from New Zealand that I’ve met and served with in four combat deployments. It means I express my personal gratitude that we as a country have allies like them,” he said.

He said the American GI, as Gen. (Colin) Powell used to call them, is the diplomat in those foreign lands who builds that goodwill and prosperity.

Kramlich said the United States will continue to make allies of adversaries, and it is veterans who have made that transition from adversaries to allies peaceful.

The program included retired Air Force Lowell Cormier, master of ceremonies; Minot Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 753 Color Guard; select singers from Our Redeemer’s Christian School with director retired USMC Chris Ann Badger and accompanist Debra Olsen; Cub Scout Pack 4412; Pastor Jordan Spina of Our Redeemer’s Church; and American Legion Post 26 Color Guard.