**REMARKS BY ATTORNEY GENERAL MICHAEL B. MUKASEY**

**AT THE FEDERAL EXECUTIVE BOARD OF NEW YORK CITY**

**EMPLOYEES OF THE YEAR AWARD CEREMONY**

**ELLIS ISLAND, NEW YORK**

It's a pleasure to join you today to help recognize the accomplishments
and the dedication of the federal employees who serve here in New York.

Being back here, in my lifelong home, brings to mind a comment made by
one of my predecessors as Attorney General, Robert Jackson, on a trip to
California in 1939. Emphasizing the relative virtues of life outside of
Washington, D.C., he said: \"Everyone in official life should be
compelled to spend every third week at home---wherever that is---so as
to get the tonic of life as it really is, to relieve the political high
blood pressure that always affects Washington, and which, at about this
season, is apt to make its victims a little hysterical.\" It's
debatable, I guess, whether he had New York City in mind when he said
that; this place is not exactly known for lowering the blood pressure.
But in any event, thank you for inviting me here, and making me a little
less hysterical, and a lot more at home.

It is a special honor to join you at this historic venue, the welcoming
point for so many immigrants to this country. My father arrived at this
island in 1921 with his younger sister from what was then a part of
Russia. He was 19 years old, they were alone, and virtually penniless.
That his son could return to this island 87 years later as Attorney
General of the United States, to praise the idea and the fact of service
to what was then his new country, is certainly a powerful testament to
this nation's exceptionalism.

My own perspective on public service is shaped by my combined 23 years
with the federal government---as an Assistant United States Attorney, a
District Court judge, and now as Attorney General. Looking back, I can
easily say that my years in public office have had by far the most
meaning to me.

Not only because there is nothing more fulfilling than to work for the
public good, but also because the dedicated men and women I have worked
with in federal service are among the finest people I've known.

Today, when I go to work at the Justice Department, I am surrounded by a
staff that stands person after person in the first rank of talent --
legal and otherwise -- among the many talented people I have dealt with.
Any of them could make many times their salaries in the private sector,
probably with less stress and shorter hours---and I know the same could
be said for many of you here today. But they, like you, have chosen
instead to work in government service, and this country benefits from
that choice.

So before I go any further, the thing I want to say most of all is thank
you -- for your dedication, for your commitment, for all of your efforts
in behalf of your fellow citizens.

The work of the federal government is difficult, and too often it is
done without the thanks that are due, but it could not be more
important. Whether the fellow citizens you serve even realize it on a
day-to-day basis, the responsibilities of those here today -- and across
the federal government -- touch on just about every aspect of their
lives.

You protect our country from terrorist attack, and strengthen our
nation's borders. You safeguard the nation's food and water supply, and
our environment. You care for our children, our sick, our elderly, our
poor, our troops and our veterans. The list goes on and on, and it
affects and benefits us all.

Just how diverse those contributions are is reflected in the range of
award recipients today. They include people from across the executive
branch -- from the FBI to the FAA, from the U.S. Geological Survey to
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, from the Department of Health and
Human Services to the Department of Homeland Security.

They range from people whose achievements are the stuff of headlines,
like the Operation Shining Light team that disrupted a terrorist plot to
attack JFK airport, to people whose achievements are unlikely ever to
make the papers, but whose contributions are every bit as significant.

They include supervisors and team leaders, as well as those responsible
for providing technical or logistical support, scientific expertise, and
clerical assistance. In short, they cover and define what it means to be
a federal employee.

People go into public service for many different reasons. For some, it
is a job. For others, it is an honor and a duty. For many here today, it
goes to the core of who they are: people who are willing to get less
even as they give more in the name of serving their communities and
their fellow citizens.

A dramatic example of that spirit is found in the valor of Andrew
MacDonald, an FAA employee who on his way to work one day literally
risked his life in an effort to save a woman lying in the middle of a
busy parkway. Less dramatically, but no less significantly, that spirit
of helping others above and beyond the four corners of the job is
illustrated by Richard Berman, who devotes countless hours to helping
the victims of AIDS and HIV; by James Cott, who established an
innovative youth mentoring program at the U.S. Attorney's Office; and by
Jeanne Morrone and Patricia Holmes-Burford, who shattered records at the
Social Security Administration collecting charitable contributions
through the Combined Federal Campaign.

Many of the people here, like me, have gone (or will go) back and forth
between public service and the private sector. Our government benefits
greatly from that kind of cross-pollination, because it brings energy,
skills and experience from the private sector to the task of solving
problems in the public interest.

But for many of you, like Nancy Williams and Robert Mudzinski, public
service is a lifelong calling. Ms. Williams has served her country at
the Social Security Administration for over 50 years -- more than a half
century! -- and Mr. Mudzinski has done the same at the Secret Service
for more than 40. Government may benefit from having people, like me,
who can't keep a steady job; but it literally couldn't function day in
day out, year in year out, without the dedication and commitment of
those like Ms. Williams and Mr. Mudzinski.

The individual award recipients I have mentioned are just an example of
the extraordinary people being honored here today, and each year, by the
Federal Executive Board. In reviewing the contents of today's program,
you can't help but be impressed. It is a catalogue of remarkable
accomplishments, and the biographies of these men and women are enough
to convince any cynic that government can and does make a difference.

I have been Attorney General for only about six months. But during that
time, I have made it a point to get out as much as possible to meet and
thank the people who do the work of the Justice Department day in and
day out. The Justice Department, like many of the other departments and
agencies represented here today, is much less a building in Washington
than it is an army of the field. It is the troops -- like you -- who do
the work that others -- like me -- often get credit for. You do it not
for the pay, not for the material comforts, and not for the recognition,
but for the pride that comes from doing what's right and from serving
others.

That sense of pride is what first brought me into government service 35
years ago. When I was a young lawyer in private practice in New York,
there was a senior associate at the law firm who made a particular
impression on me. In the office, he often seemed to be stooped over,
with a slightly morose look on his face. Whenever possible, the senior
associate would manufacture a reason to go downtown to the federal
courthouse, and whenever he did that he would stop by to visit his old
colleagues who worked at the U.S. Attorney's Office. And during those
visits on which I tagged along, he was never the same: The burdened look
on his face was gone, and he stood tall with pride. I didn't know at the
time what it was that caused that transformation, but whatever it was I
wanted a piece of it.

As he did, all of you can and should stand tall with pride.

I congratulate each of today's award winners, and thank you for your
extraordinary service.

Thank you.