Vice President Joe Biden stopped in Hawaii this afternoon and thanked hundreds of troops for their service on his way back from India and Singapore — two key nations in America’s military and economic involvement in Asia and the Pacific.

Biden told more than 500 military members and their families from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard that they are “equal to any Americans gone before you.”

Speaking at Pearl Harbor, Biden said he had seen them in action in Baghdad, Basra, Fallujah and Ramadi in Iraq, and Kabul, Kandahar and at 8,000 feet altitude in Kunar province in Afghanistan.

“You and your families are part of an unbroken chain of patriots that have stood guard over the Pacific since that day of infamy in 1941,” Biden said in a reference to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Biden said America’s strength in the Pacific has never been greater, and he talked about a “Pacific alliance we’re looking for going from Chile to Indonesia.” The Pacific Basin “is where the future lies,” he added.

“We are, and will remain, a resident Pacific power,” Biden said.