KEY POINTS:
I was nearly 10 in 1961 when President Kennedy's inauguration speech was beamed across the black-and-white TV sets of the United States. Hearing our new President challenge us to "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country", inspired us to think we could make a difference. Kennedy's words still echo in the American spirit. His call reinvigorated Americans' desire to serve, and my 27 years as an American diplomat are my response to that call.
Watching from Wellington I heard echoes of the young and charismatic JFK as President Obama used his inaugural address to invite Americans to embrace what he dubbed "a new era of responsibility". He praised those who have the "willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves", and challenged us all to contribute.
Faced with "gathering clouds and raging storms" both at home and around the world, I have no doubt that many Americans, especially young Americans, will respond to the President's call, just as my friends and I and our older brothers and sisters did a generation ago.
Whether they make a career in public service, or volunteer in the local community, Americans have a proud history of volunteering and of individual support for their communities. Leading the way on his last day as President-elect, Barack Obama spent the Martin Luther King public holiday painting a teenagers' shelter in Washington DC.
Like JFK a generation earlier, President Obama was not just calling for individuals to take action; he was calling for America itself to take responsibility for its actions, and to work with like-minded peoples around the world to further the values we all share.
The President's articulation of these values has met a warm response around the world. For me, the positive reaction of Kiwi friends to the American election and President Obama's inauguration has been a high point of my time here. Frankly, I was startled and humbled by the outpouring of friendship and support - one New Zealander even said: "There was a point during that speech when we all felt like Americans".
Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised. After all, the values President Obama highlighted - "honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism" - are the very same values I see in my dealings with New Zealanders every day. It is these shared values which give both countries what the new President described as an "enduring spirit".
As I stood at the back of the embassy's auditorium and watched our new President on the big screen speaking about that enduring spirit, I reflected on the fact that both New Zealanders and Americans have overcome great trials and tribulations in the past.
Through racial division, economic hardship, and through war, our forefathers grappled with, and overcame, many daunting challenges - challenges which most of us today, in our relative 21st century comfort, can scarcely imagine.
As he spoke, earlier great inauguration addresses in US history flashed through my mind: Abraham Lincoln's call for tolerance from "the better angels of our nature" in the face of civil war, and Franklin Roosevelt's assurance, as the Great Depression seemed to swallow American dreams, that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself...".
I was reminded, too, of the enduring spirit of generations of New Zealanders. The spirit that informed the genius of Lord Rutherford and Richard Pearce. The spirit which elevated the great oratory of Sir Apirana Ngata. And the spirit which inspired the deeds of Kate Sheppard, Sir Edmund Hilary and Corporal Willie Apiata. America and New Zealand share so much in common.
So let me say it plainly: America wants and needs friends like New Zealand. That's the message the President reiterated personally on his first day in office.
With Secretary of State Clinton by his side at their Washington DC headquarters, he made it very clear to the entire US diplomatic corps that he expected us to work collaboratively with other countries to achieve positive change. He reminded us that, "We must recognise that America's strength comes not just from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from our enduring values".
So to New Zealanders and all like-minded peoples around the world I find myself citing another phrase from that 1961 inaugural address which means even more to me now than it did then: "To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United, there is little we cannot do in a host of co-operative ventures."
* Dave Keegan is charge d'affaires at the US Embassy in Wellington and Acting American Ambassador.
