United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby has posted a 2024 Memorial Day message in which he calls the United States “the greatest country in the history of Earth” and lauds those who “put their lives on the line to keep this the greatest country on Earth and to be a beacon of democracy, hope, and freedom for the rest of the world.”
United Airlines CEO Offers 2024 Memorial Day Message
Kirby referred to himself as “very patriotic” and made the remarks in a 1-minute video to employees to mark Memorial Day in the United States, which was later shared on his Instagram channel.
View this post on Instagram
This Memorial Day, I want to thank and honor everyone who made the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of our country and freedom around the world.
As most of you know, I am very patriotic and believe this is the greatest country in the history of Earth. We aren’t perfect, but we constantly get better because of the people who came before us. And as we approach the eightieth anniversary of Normandy in a couple weeks, I’m reminded of the many people who made up the greatest generation — who made those sacrifices during World War II, those who fought in the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf Wars and in all of the conflicts that followed. They put their lives on the line to keep this the greatest country on Earth and to be a beacon of democracy, hope, and freedom for the rest of the world.
So, to all of them and to the family members left behind, thank you. Thank you, also, to our veterans for your service to the country. I appreciate all that everyone here at United is doing, and this is the day to think about the people who’ve made everything that we get to do for our customers possible.
Thank you and have a great summer.
* * *
Sound familiar? Kirby made similar remarks last year.
> Read More: United Airlines CEO Says USA Is The “Greatest Country In The History Of The Planet”
Kirby’s remarks resonate with me. I also look back on the Normandy invasion with great thankfulness for every man and for those from all generations who took up the defense of liberty for the United States and the free world. We are so far removed from these periods that shaped world order but were borne out by the sacrifices of soldiers who answered the call of duty, with so many losing their lives in defense of a noble idea and way of life.
There is always work to be done toward a more perfect union, but I despise those who hate the USA or fail to recognize the great strides toward life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that have been made as the story of the USA unfolds.
So on this day, I also offer my heartfelt gratitude for those men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of this shining city upon a hill, a sober reminder that every generation must safeguard the liberties that we cherish and have been entrusted, and for the great opportunity that all of us have to live in this place and this time with the duty and joy to make this world better than how we found it.
image: @scottkirby / Instagram
He is correct , and hopefully we can keep it so .
I like your sentiment; I’d like Kirby’s as well except that he’s absolutely not credible. The only time I will believe what Kirby says, more or less at face value, is when he’s saying something that will not be well received by his audience. I miss airline CEO’s you could believe like Herb Kelleher.
Patriotism is good for business, so he is patriotic.
Without taking away anything of the great achievements he rightly refers to, is there possibly just a slight touch of presumption in Kirby’s words? Would the greatest country not today but in the entire history of earth, not also master the virtue of understatement?
I concur that it is probably better for others to call the USA great rather than Americans, but a healthy dose of patriotism is far cry from the deplorable nationalism of some (ranging from certain Trumpers in the USA to some AFD folks in D).
I think it best to leave your politics out of this – especially today. It is not about you …..
Memorial Day is rooted in a political issue—the Civil War—and every war is an extension of politics. So no, your request is denied and this is most certainly not about me.
Ok,…let’s talk about your “f’’kd” up hair!
Age is the only party that can save Germany from all the hordes of rapeugees that nutti merkel let in.
we tried the “only XY can save us” nonsense once and it hasn’t worked very well. If you want a savior go to a church of your chosing
We’d be so much better if it weren’t for the woke and “progressives” who are attempting to create their own twisted version of utopia.
But I thought the USA was supposed to be a horrible, terrible, racist, MAGA, white supremacist place (that people won’t stop illegally flocking to)?
I think the only people who call America horrible are the Hamas/China/Russia sympathizers and the extreme Trumpists who won’t concede an inch for fear of it helping Biden, like a full cricle.
Your annual reminder on this memorial day that trump called those that died fighting for the US “suckers” and “losers”. Everyone that votes him feels the same.
Thank you. And for those who are unaware:
“According to a report” is NOT the same as hearing him say it. I hate the media..all of it.
Let’s pray we do not have 4 more years of Uncle Joe. Happy memorial day to all and Kirby is not always right, but he was right in those comments!
He’s right.
Only two kinds of people join the military.
Morons and/or sociopaths.
Matthew, since when can you comment GIFs?
Only the editor can. 😉
Complete nonsense from AndyS yet again.
I have been rather impressed by the people who dedicated themselves to serving in our military as officers and moved around the country and the world as part of their military orders. I wish I could say the same about the characters to be found in corporate America.
While we understandably have lots of problems as a country and are far from perfect, I still think we are the greatest country ever and any other country given our country’s power would be far more dangerous than we have turned out to be so far.
It is a great comfort to place the betterment of our nation ahead of self-interest or tribal politics.
Thank you to all that sacrificed for this beautiful country. You will always be heroes in my heart.
Scott Kirby is right on this one
Whether you agree with the ‘best country in the history of the universe’, or whatever, sentiment, this sort of remark from a public figure clearly pushes the boundary of patriotism into chauvinism, and comes across as somewhat inappropriate when it comes to a business selling services to people of all nationalities. I wouldn’t have confidence in his employees treating me as well as his/their compatriots.
*whether or not you agree…
By the way, using Normandy as evidence for such unbridled greatness is sure to be really popular with United’s Polish customers whose country was betrayed by the US and the UK consenting to the imposition of a communist dictatorship by a party which had no prospect of ever winning any free elections.
Jingoism maybe, but chauvinism? wat?
Jingoism if you perceive it as a vacuous statement, chauvinism if you think he really does believe it.
Sadly, doesn’t make the top 10, these days.
We’re not the greatest nation in the history of the world and certainly not in the modern day. Even China has a highest quality of life than us ffs
LOL. You have clearly never been to China…
Ummm, no. Are hordes of people beating on China’s doors to be let in to enjoy the prosperity?
Bernardo the type of bro to be happy getting anally swabbed whenever the next Wuhan wheezer comes around
Hahahaha what? All your comment is missing is a picture of your CCP membership card.
No, China doesn’t have a higher standard of living than us. Sure, those TikToks of the tall, flashy skyscrapers in Shanghai and lightning fast trains might give you that image, but China goes to great lengths to conceal many of its unsavory elements, of which there are a lot. Picture the bad parts of American livelihoods, but like 5x worse. But hey, at least you can buy a fancy phone!
The U.S. has problems. Loads of them. In fact, that’s all anyone seems to talk about these days. But we don’t hide our problems from the world. Sure, we don’t necessarily promote them, but we don’t try to conceal them and are open about the struggles Americans face Which I think is one of the things that makes this country so great.
If you travel to Urumqi, in the Xinjiang region of China, where millions of ethnic minorities are having their movement restricted and monitored, and are being locked up in camps, you will have police watching your every move, and the government will do everything in its power to prevent you from seeing the things it doesn’t want you to see. That’s how they put forward this image of being “advanced.”
Meanwhile, you can drive into any underdeveloped neighborhood in the U.S., and see for yourself how unfortunate some people’s lives are. Yes, it’s awful that people are still forced to live livelihoods like this, but you’re allowed to witness it without any restriction or surveillance. There won’t be people shooing you away, or preventing you from seeing something, and when people speak to you about what their lives are really like, they will be honest about it and not talk like they’re afraid of consequences for saying something bad because someone’s watching them. The same can’t be said for China.
China and Russia will defeat the United states.
Russia is a basket case that only manages to sort of paper over its condition as such courtesy of its environmentally-destructive extractive industries and the support of OPEC in propping up oil prices.
Your beloved Putin has been China’s puppy and a kiss-up to Netanyahu, the Ayatollahs, North Korea, Erdogan, Modi and the MBS. Russia’s allies tell the story about Russia’s basket case status.
You know how the US gets defeated? By the woke leftist “progressives.”
All attempts in history at utopianism have ended in utter disaster and massive human deaths (Stalin/Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.).
Ideological crazies like we see in leftism always destroy nations.
You need to see more of China, as your comparison is way off.
Beside being a brutally authoritarian state from the top down and having aspirations to be both an imperial power and an ethno-nationalist state, China has other problems too. And China’s still got massive amounts of rural and even urban poverty. I would estimate that at least 80% of Americans are far better off with a higher quality of life than 99% of Chinese in PRC.
This is why I support the soldiers and people of Ukraine. They are fighting for their democracy just like we were once compelled to do.
Then you’re a Brainwashed idiot.
Ukraine isn’t a real country. They aren’t a real democracy, at least since the CIA coup in 2014. Ukraine is and always has been Russia. They speak Russian in all the major cities even In kiev.
What the USA did to Ukraine is a crime against humanity. The good news I Russia is advancing on all fronts and most men in Ukraine are hiding away from the nazi gestapo types to draft them.
@AndyS. Yeah! I have been saying this for years as to why we need to invade Canada. Damn Canadians don’t deserve a country of their own. Greedy curling loving maple tree huggers. It’s time to free their people from oppression and nazism, and remind them that they are really just Americans and need us to control their path forward as a society.
To be serious, you love Russia because you are a racist. You love Russia, like Tucker does, because it’s the whitest place on the planet. You just can’t get enough of that white skin and snow.
The reality? It’ a washed up, second tier country with the GDP of Italy. They have some oil and nuclear weapons. That’s it. Their workforce is subpar, their technology is abysmal, their people are sheep. They want Ukraine for one reason, to make them as miserable as they all are.
Stuart,
First paragraph good laugh, second paragraph truth ( Tucker turned absolute Trump tool ) third paragraph why I respect you so much! Please keep it up.
You’re not wrong.
I admire Russia and Putin.
But america will fall long before Russia. It’s an ulcerated nation full of low IQ third worlders and sexual deviants.
@AndyS
“But america will fall long before Russia. It’s an ulcerated nation full of low IQ third worlders and sexual deviants.”
Ah, that explains why so many Russian women are on Pornhub. They go where the market is…successful, wealthy, and not asleep at 8PM holding a bottle of vodka alongside their sheep. Thanks for helping me understand. Sexual deviant Democracy for the win!
Completely agree, Stuart! I’ll never understand people who support Russia. If you support it because you hate the U.S., well I can tell you Russia is everything bad about America but 100x worse, in every regard.
If you support Russia because they stand for “traditional values,” I can tell you that A) There are many countries in Europe where traditionalism is widespread that *aren’t* warmongering authoritarian regimes, and B) Civil liberties movements are actually serious talking points in Russia. Just because you pass legislation suppressing it, doesn’t mean it goes away. In fact, the opposite has been more true historically.
What I’m trying to say is that calling someone “racist” for supporting Russia is an extreme understatement. The only way I can see someone supporting Russia is if they are against the ideas of democracy, freedom, human rights, and basic human decency. And if that’s the case, that’s all I need to know about them.
Democracy has failed in the West.
Well said. You can’t truly support freedom if you do so only in some places. It’s ironic that a fascist like Putin who emulates the nazis would accuse victims of the nazis in Ukraine of being – well, nazis.
Putin, Netanyahu and Trump are birds of the same feather: psychopaths with long histories of trying to gaslight the public.
All are great men.
And I still pray cancer comes your way.
You know what they say about karma. Hopefully it’s merciful for hateful losers that wish cancer upon others.
Speaking of cancers. Even as they are a symbol of cancers in society in their own backyard and around the world, Putin, Netanyahu and Trump are birds of the same psychopathic gaslighting club and even their natural end as old men sooner than later won’t be the end of their mentality in society and the halls of power. Power-mongers obsessed with securing political dominance without a sense of good morality combined with an insecure public create a cancer in the body politic and it shows in both domestic politics and international relations.
The secure America that came from the dedication of US military personnel and the ingenuity and drive of an open society is the reason we have been the great liberal democracy of history and a power like no other before. Those who talk trash are doing so because they hate liberal democracy and an open society and thus support psychopathic narcissists like Trump, Putin, and Netanyahu and feel at home with wannabe fascists like them, Modi and Erdogan.
Now you should understand why someone of AndyS’ mentality hates on the service of the US military and our veterans who served the country by lawfully upholding the oath to the Constitution and not an oath to a man (or woman) in political office.
@GUWonder
You’re right.
And it’s a badge of honor.
Ukraine are nazi collaborators you need to read history and you need to see the footage the American media hides of hohols throwing up roman salutes and proudly showing off their Nazi patches and badges.
Bandera was a Nazi and they worship him like a god.
Democracy died in Ukraine when the elected president was ousted in a CIA backed coup.
Either way Russia is advancing on all fronts and it doesn’t matter how many weapons are sent there when all they have are old men and pregnant women to fire them.
There will be another coup in within the year as the people that are still there have had enough throwing their lives away.
Back during the Yeltsin years and for many years thereafter. Putin was not only a backer of Russian ethnonationalism; he actively encouraged the growth of neo-Nazis in Russia and he encouraged them to take a lead in supporting neo-Nazis in OECD countries. A more Machiavellian player could not be realized even if imagined. That Putin game during the 1990s has morphed into the current support that Putin’s Russia gives to the far right political parties across Europe today all while feigning that his war on Ukraine is about fighting Nazis in Ukraine.
Putin likes to pose without a shirt. But really he has no pants either as the emperor is naked also as a result of “liar, liar, pants on fire”.
Why doesn’t Ukraine just join Russia? They are of the same culture and speak Russian.
Slippery slope there buddy. Maybe we should try another Anschluss here with the Austrians…
On the balance of things, you could make a fair argument that an existing nation with free healthcare and education would be a better country in the history of the world. Somewhere less corrupt, maybe a little less violent. Less divided. Greater equality. Certainly less obese. Like New Zealand?? Or one of the empires, back in the day. Egypt 3k years ago seems like it was doing some great things but in recent years has regressed a little lol.
Not even close. Kemet (born out of Anubis/Kush) was the greatest country in the history of the world. Ruled for 3000 years before an outside entity even made contact with it. Kemet gave us mathematics, science, philosophy, architecture, medicine, agriculture, and culture. America is on the decline less than 250 year after its conception. My #2 on the list would be the Mali Empire. It was the wealthiest nation the world ever saw.
ackchyually
*Nubia*
Last year I went to Iraq. Before Team America showed up, it was a happy place. They had flowery meadows and rainbow skies and rivers made of chocolate, where the children danced and laughed and played with gumdrop smiles.
Everyone knows, America ALWAYS has had this /SUPERIORITY COMPLEx.
That’s because America is so isolated from the rest of the world that it always INVADES but was never INVADED.
Do you not recall stories about the Brits invading Washington, DC, as part of the War of 1812? In August it will be the 210th anniversary of the burning of DC by the Brits and their allies during the British invasion and capture of the nation’s capital.
strange how nobody remembers the War of 1812
Which sort of carried on for a couple of years beyond 1812.
The audacity of self-confidence and belief in a destiny of greater things for one’s own people has been the mother, father and wet nurse of nationhood for people yearning for self-determination. It’s why empires aren’t eternal and also why independence movements and even colonial-settler movements don’t always fail to give birth to nationhood and nation-states.
As to Kirby, he should perhaps focus more attention on the airline he runs, and making it actually world class, instead of spending time telling the world that America is so superior. This is a great country, and I am grateful for the opportunity and place I live in, but I don’t run around touting that we are the greatest country in history. We have much to improve. Education would be at the forefront. And I will tell you more after November.
Again, as to Kirby. how about focusing on your airline, which is far from the greatest airline in the history of the world. In fact, is subpar and often awful. It starts with you. Show me.
Blind chauvinism this.
corporate patriotism is just so weird from my european pov
Interesting article in NYT where future AIs could replace CEOs. I nominate they try it with United and American CEOS since a computer can’t do a worse job then these two placeholders.
Even before all this “AI” stuff nowadays, I had already had enough of the “computer says no” stuff from airlines and other businesses.
We are all in trouble when a computer algorithm becomes the available scapegoat/fall-guy from the top down, as it will become the ultimate means in evading accountability for disasters which weren’t inevitable. For an example of that, just wait to see how Israel may try to claim its use of AI led to mistakes and thus its human leaders’ flaws was not in issuing illegal orders but in trusting AI determinations for those orders.
The American dream is not feasible to those that are discriminated against. When will America learn?
Given how many immigrants and their children are far better off in the US than they would have been if they remained in the lands of their parental origins, I would argue that “the American dream” lives largest in those immigrants who have been the greatest beneficiaries of the post-WW2 civil rights movements which opened the door to making America more welcoming and greater even in the face of imperfections that are part and parcel of human nature.
In some ways it is very ironic how the British Empire — despite its extensive nastiness — has been the parent of the best countries in the world for immigrants from the non-European places which were colonized by the Brits. In other words, the American dream sort of has its equivalent in some other anglophone high income OECD countries beside just the US. And yet the US has that “giant sucking sound” which captures the hopes and dreams of more immigrants around the world than any other country. It’s a sign of a great country. Not a perfect country, but a great country nonetheless.
Here’s a concept I struggle with… If America is so great, why am I so unhappy here? I benefit from the economics, and quite honestly, by a lot of inherent privilege.
I feel like there are very few Americans, at least that I encounter, that think like me. I’ve lived all over the USA, and nowhere has really ever felt like home. I do feel relaxed and welcome more often, when I’m abroad.
America has contributed a lot to the world, and I’d say on balance, more good than bad. In many ways there are two Americas, one for the haves and one for the have nots. Both seem to think the country is amazing, but I just don’t see how it is possible to declare a country (a concept that is fairly modern itself) the best in the history of the world. I think doing so makes one sound silly.
You probably have a deep-seated depression that no country could ever fix even if you moved. No one should be so privileged (not only well off enough to travel, but well off enough to travel in J, like many on this blog) and still be “unhappy.”
Find the root cause of that unhappiness. (it’s probably not America, if I had to guess)