Biden to Coast Guard Commencement: COVID Readied You for Any Mission

The global coronavirus pandemic has presented challenges to America and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy has lived up to it to be "always ready," President Joe Biden said at the  commencement address Wednesday.

"This past year, there can be no doubt this class can be ready for what the mission may be," President Biden told the graduates at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.

Biden lauded the parents of those being saluted, too.

"You raised these cadets to be fierce patriots as well as young people full of determination," he said.

Biden noted the difference in the lives and the training of the cadets at the academy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Last year's graduating class didn't get to have this ceremony in person, but you met the threat head on and adapted, and showed your resilience, and you led," Biden said.

"There's no doubt in my mind the 148th graduating class of the Coast Guard Academy will reflect the best of our country and the proudest traditions of our service."

Biden billed threats in-line with his agenda, including climate change.

"The world is changing," Biden said. "We're at a significant inflexion point in world history. Our country, the world, the United States has always been able to chart the future in times of great change. We have been able to consistently renew ourselves, and time and again we have proven there's not a single thing we cannot do as a nation when we do it together, and I mean that, not a single solitary thing.

"And this is particularly important in this moment of accelerating global challenges, and hybrid threats that don't stop at our border. We have to meet them on the land or the sea, wherever we find them, and that's where the Coast Guard excels. The pandemic response would not have necessarily been considered a Coast Guard mission until there were 250,000 cruise passengers that needed to safely be disembarked during COVID-19."