Posted on 06/06/2004 4:07:50 PM PDT by Ragtime Cowgirl
President Honors Fallen at NormandyBy Sgt. 1st Class Doug Sample, USA WASHINGTON, June 6, 2004 -- President Bush today honored the thousands of soldiers who died during the invasion of Normandy 60 years ago. During a D-Day ceremony at the American Cemetery in Normandy, where U.S. service members are laid to rest, the president said "generations to come will know what happened here, but these men heard the guns." The guns he was referring to were along Hitler's Atlantic Wall in World War II: extensive fortifications along the coast, including mines, tanks, trenches and jutting cliffs, gun emplacements, machine gun nests and artillery trained accurately on the Allies landing on the beaches. "Visitors will always pay respects at this cemetery, but these veterans come looking for a name, and remembering faces and voices from a lifetime ago," Bush said, referring to D-Day veterans in the audience. "Today, we honor all the veterans of Normandy and all their comrades who never left."
During his speech the president told of the horrors of the invasion on June 6, 1944. "At all the beaches and landing grounds of D-Day, men saw some images they would spend a lifetime preferring to forget," he said. "One soldier carries the memory of three paratroopers dead and hanging from telephone poles 'like a horrible crucifixion scene.' All who fought saw images of pain and death, raw and relentless." He said that in the first wave of the landing here at Omaha Beach, one unit suffered 91 percent casualties. "As General Omar Bradley later wrote, 'Six hours after the landings, we held only 10 yards of beach.'" Yet another chilling image the president focused on was that of the beach after the guns were silent. "This coast, we are told, was lined for miles with the belongings of the thousands who fell," he said. "There were life belts and canteens and socks and K-rations and helmets and diaries and snapshots. And there were Bibles, many Bibles, mixed with the wreckage of war," he said. "Our boys had carried in their pockets the book that brought into the world this message: 'Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.'" But the president also spoke of the joy spread across Europe after the liberation. In Amsterdam, a 14-year-old girl heard the news of D-Day over the radio in her attic hiding place, he said. "She wrote in her diary, 'It still seems too wonderful, too much like a fairy tale. The thought of friends in delivery fills us with confidence.'" "Anne Frank even ventured to hope, 'I may yet be able to go back to school in September or October,'" he said. The president reminded the audience that across Europe, "Americans shared the battle with Britains, Canadians, Poles, free French, and brave citizens from other countries" to take back land from Nazi rule. "In the trials and total sacrifice of the war, we became inseparable allies," he said. "The nations that liberated a conquered Europe would stand together for the freedom of all of Europe. The nations that battled across the continent would become trusted partners in the cause of peace. "And our great alliance of freedom is strong, and it is still needed today," Bush stated. "America honors all the liberators who fought here in the noblest of causes, and America would do it again for our friends," he concluded.
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... the beach after the guns were silent...
"This coast, we are told, was lined for miles with the belongings of the thousands who fell.."
"There were life belts and canteens and socks and K-rations and helmets and diaries and snapshots. And there were Bibles, many Bibles, mixed with the wreckage of war," he said. "Our boys had carried in their pockets the book that brought into the world this message: 'Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.'"
NORMANDY AMERICAN CEMETERY AND MEMORIAL
"America honors all the liberators who fought here in the noblest of causes, and America would do it again for our friends." - President George W. Bush
BTTT!
06/05/2004: America, France Pay Tribute to WWII Airborne Heroes 06/05/2004: Story of 2 Jumps, 60 Years Apart 06/05/2004: Myers: Today's Terror Threat as Dangerous as World War II's 06/05/2004: D-Day Invasion Showed Value of Perseverance, Rumsfeld Says 06/05/2004: Honored Vets Reflect on D-Day Experiences |
I honestly don't know how those men did it. God Bless them each and everyone.
Thank you for this article.
We get very poor TV reception where we live, [only PBS and ABC], but last evening I happened to see a PBS special on a memorial in France for the the 507th parachute infantry regiment which helped liberate the French during the allied invasion on D-Day. They have erected a very nice likeness of a parachutist at that site, and, happily, PBS did a decent job with the program.
Freedom isn't free.
Wasn't back then. Still isn't.
This is the part of the speech where I lost it.
mark for later
((hugs))
I finally got to see it on CSpan last night at nine.. Public Speaking isn't Dubya's strongest point but he scored a homerun in my opinion. Did a little face/dirt rubbing to our French "friends"(???), It would have been great to be there . Seems llike a much warmer day than 10 years ago when the sorry president gave the address.
Does anyone know what happened to the honor guard man who seems to have passed out? Is he okay?;
We need to pray for GWB.. this is going to be an intense week following an intense weekend...
This spring, I had the remarkable experience of attending the burial service for a French sailor, whose remains were recovered from the 1666 wreck of La Salle's ship, "La Belle", in Texas' Matagorda Bay. Texas honored him by interring him in the Texas State Cemetery.
Featured speaker at the service was the French Ambassador to the United States, Jean-David Levitte. After thanking Texans for honoring his countryman in such a fashion, he said, "I have completed my official remarks, and now, I would like to speak to you from my own heart."
Then, he proceeded to, in essence, apologize for the way his government had acted re America's liberation of Iraq. Then he concluded with, "But we, thepeople of France, will never forget -- never forget -- that you Americans saved our country -- not once, but twice!".
"This cemetery is large, and full of heroes, but it is tiny compared to the fields of American graves in our soil. I invite you to come to the beaches of Normandy next June. There you will see and experience for yourselves the love and appreciation the people of France have for our American saviors. We do remember -- and we thank you -- and we will never, never forget!"
Toward the end, his voice choked with emotion -- and there were more thn a few teary eyes among the several hundred assembled Texans...
...Only funeral to which I ever received an engraved invitation... But the Ambassador's heartfelt comments (paraphrased from memory here) made the 500+ mile trip to Austin well worthwhile.
Bumping TXnMA's post, paraphrased comments from a grateful French Ambassador to the United States, Jean-David Levitte, speaking on behalf of his grateful French countrymen at a funeral in Texas this spring.
I will remember that we do have true allies (without mighty pens, and with mightier faith) in France, and around the world.
I thought it was one of the best D-Day speeches I've ever heard. It was directed at the vets, it was personal and very powerful. It wasn't for the world, it was for the men who fought.
We keep saying that, and each time he gives a speech we all say that he hit this one out of the park, it was the best speech yet, etc.
His speeches are always inspiring, uplifting, and each one DOES get better than the last. When history looks back, they are going to be confused about why people said he wasn't a good public speaker.
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