, Lieutenant Governor steele and congressman hoyer, distinguished faculty, distinguished guests, proud parents, family, friends, and most of all the graduating midshipmen of the class of 2005, i am honored to be here. [applause] and i am proud to stand before the future leaders of the navy and marine corps and to celebrate the occasion i thought i would bring along a small graduation gift. It is too late to give you a stall back day so i will do the next best thing. In keeping with longstanding tradition, i hereby absolve all midshipmen who are on restriction for minor conduct offensive offenses. [laughter] [applause] i will leave it to the admiral to define exactly what minor means. [laughter] you worked hard to get to this moment. You survived the summer and having your parking tickets scraped. You climbed Herndon Monument and threw pennies at tecumseh, god of the 2. 0. I knew him pretty well when i was in school. [laughter] now at last, you have made it to Graduation Day come and in