Teddy Roosevelt's 'Man in the Arena' speech engraved in monument at Rocky Point military history museum

The words of one of Long Island’s "proudest sons" have been etched into marble in Rocky Point to honor not only the man who spoke them 115 years ago, but all those who served the United States armed forces.

The VFW Post 6249 Suffolk County World War II and Military History Museum, which opened two years ago in the old Rocky Point train station, unveiled on Friday a black marble monument bearing a portrait of President Theodore Roosevelt. Alongside it is a portion of a speech on citizenship in a democratic republic that he delivered in Paris in 1910, the year following his presidency. The words now adorning the museum's lawn are often referred to as Roosevelt’s "Man in the Arena" speech.

Roosevelt’s words are a call to service, said Capt. Christopher Casswell, who served in the Army as an active air defense artillery officer, including a stint in the Middle East, shortly after graduating Rocky Point High School in 2016. Casswell reflected on the service of the "Greatest Generation" that fought in World War II before a crowd of fellow veterans and their family members Friday evening. He called on young Americans to heed Roosevelt’s call to take risks and enter "the arena" for themselves.

"What will today’s generation be called? The ChatGPT generation? The social media generation?" Casswell, 26, asked rhetorically. "To become another ‘greatest generation,’ they must embrace service — public service, community service and military service ... They must jump into the arena of public engagement, accepting the risk of failure, to build character, resolve and courage."

Police, firefighters, teachers and even scientists are just some of the folks who "step into that arena and take the slings and arrows," said Vietnam-era Army veteran Bill Jones, who served as a master of ceremonies for the evening. When he delivered the speech in 1910, Roosevelt "was talking about ... what it had taken for America to make it to 1910," Jones said. "He talked about what was necessary: for people to stand up and go into the arena to continue to make it a great and strong country."

Recognizing action and deriding bystanders, or "critics" as Roosevelt said in his speech, made the 26th president who lived in Cove Neck for many years before his death a "strong leader" to his troops, said Rich Acritelli, who served in the Army Reserves and teaches U.S. history at Rocky Point High School and Suffolk County Community College. During the Spanish-American War, Acritelli said Roosevelt, one of Long Island’s "proudest sons" and a lieutenant colonel in the Army before becoming president, sent a letter "damning the War Department" for "leaving his soldiers in the tropics" for too long after the conflict ended.

"Americans were susceptible to a lot of the diseases that were [in] Cuba," said Acritelli, 50, of Wading River. "He said ... ‘you’re actually killing more of your men than Spanish bullets.’ That’s why he did not get the Medal of Honor until 100 years later. He really stuck it to the government. He was very loud."

The $8,000 monument was privately funded by Bill Donahue, a board member of Honor Flight Long Island, which sends veterans on day trips to visit national monuments dedicated in their honor in Washington. Donahue said he wanted to "do something special" at the Rocky Point museum to honor the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. When asked why, he said: "I love supporting veterans."

"We all enjoy freedom today because of the brave men and women that put themselves at risk," Donahue told the crowd Friday. "I’ll quote Calvin Coolidge: ‘the nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten.’"