For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
June 6, 2001
Remarks by the President at Dedication of the National D-Day Memorial
Bedford City, Virginia
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1:10 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. At ease. And be seated.
Thank you for that warm welcome. Governor Gilmore, thank you so very
much for your friendship and your leadership here in the Commonwealth of
Virginia. Lt. Governor Hager and Attorney General Earley, thank you, as well,
for your hospitality.
I'm honored to be traveling today with Secretary Principi, Veterans Affairs
Department. I'm honored to be traveling today with two fantastic United States
Senators from the Commonwealth of Virginia, Senator Warner and Senator
Allen. (Applause.) Congressman Goode and Goodlatte are here, as
well. Thank you for your presence. The Ambassador from France -- it's a
pleasure to see him, and thank you for your kind words. Delegate Putney,
Chaplain Sessions, Bob Slaughter, Richard Burrow, distinguished guests, and
my fellow Americans.
I'm honored to be here today to dedicate this memorial. And this is a proud
day for the people of Virginia, and for the people of the United States. I'm
honored to share it with you, on behalf of millions of Americans.
We have many World War II and D-Day veterans with us today, and we're
honored by your presence. We appreciate your example, and thank you for
coming. And let it be recorded we're joined by one of the most distinguished of
them all -- a man who arrived at Normandy by glider with the 82nd Airborne
Division; a man who serves America to this very hour. Please welcome Major
General Strom Thurmond. (Applause.)
You have raised a fitting memorial to D-Day, and you have put it in just the
right place -- not on a battlefield of war, but in a small Virginia town, a place
like so many others that we're home to the men an women who help liberate a
continent.
Our presence here, 57 years removed from that event, gives testimony to
how much was gained and how much was lost. What was gained that first day
was a beach, and then a village, and then a country. And in time, all of Western
Europe would be freed from fascism and its armies.
The achievement of Operation Overlord is nearly impossible to overstate, in
its consequences for our own lives and the life of the world. Free societies in
Europe can be traced to the first footprints on the first beach on June 6,
1944. What was lost on D-Day we can never measure and never forget.
When the day was over, America and her allies had lost at least 2,500 of the
bravest men ever to wear a uniform. Many thousands more would die on the
days that followed. They scaled towering cliffs, looking straight up into enemy
fire. They dropped into grassy fields sown with land mines. They overran
machine gun nests hidden everywhere, punched through walls of barbed wire,
overtook bunkers of concrete and steel. The great journalist Ernie Pyle said, "It
seemed to me a pure miracle that we ever took the beach at all. The
advantages were all theirs, the disadvantages all ours." "And yet," said Pyle, "we
got on."
A father and his son both fell during Operation Overlord. So did 33 pairs of
brothers -- including a boy having the same name as his hometown, Bedford T.
Hoback, and his brother Raymond. Their sister, Lucille, is with us today. She
has recalled that Raymond was offered an early discharge for health reasons,
but he turned it down. "He didn't want to leave his brother," she
remembers. "He had come over with him and he was going to stay with
him." Both were killed on D-Day. The only trace of Raymond Hoback was his
Bible, found in the sand. Their mother asked that Bedford be laid to rest in
France with Raymond, so that her sons might always be together.
Perhaps some of you knew Gordon White, Sr. He died here just a few
years ago, at the age of 95, the last living parent of a soldier who died on
D-Day. His boy, Henry, loved his days on the family farm, and was especially
fond of a workhorse named Major. Family members recall how Gordon just
couldn't let go of Henry's old horse, and he never did. For 25 years after the
war, Major was cherished by Gordon White as a last link to his son, and a link
to another life.
Upon this beautiful town fell the heaviest share of American losses on
D-Day -- 19 men from a community of 3,200, four more afterwards. When
people come here, it is important to see the town as the monument itself. Here
were the images these soldiers carried with them, and the thought of when they
were afraid. This is the place they left behind. And here was the life they
dreamed of returning to. They did not yearn to be heroes. They yearned for
those long summer nights again, and harvest time, and paydays. They wanted
to see Mom and Dad again, and hold their sweethearts or wives, or for one
young man who lived here, to see that baby girl born while he was away.
Bedford has a special place in our history. But there were neighborhoods
like these all over America, from the smallest villages to the greatest
cities. Somehow they all produced a generation of young men and women
who, on a date certain, gathered and advanced as one, and changed the course
of history. Whatever it is about America that has given us such citizens, it is the
greatest quality we have, and may it never leave us.
In some ways, modern society is very different from the nation that the men
and women of D-Day knew, and it is sometimes fashionable to take a cynical
view of the world. But when the calendar reads the 6th of June, such opinions
are better left unspoken. No one who has heard and read about the events of
D-Day could possibly remain a cynic. Army Private Andy Rooney was there
to survey the aftermath. A lifetime later he would write, "If you think the world
is selfish and rotten, go to the cemetery at Colleville overlooking Omaha
Beach. See what one group of men did for another on D-Day, June 6, 1944."
Fifty-three hundred ships and landing craft; 1,500 tanks; 12,000
airplanes. But in the end, it came down to this: scared and brave kids by the
thousands who kept fighting, and kept climbing, and carried out General
Eisenhower's order of the day -- nothing short of complete victory.
For us, nearly six decades later, the order of the day is gratitude. Today we
give thanks for all that was gained on the beaches of Normandy. We remember
what was lost, with respect, admiration and love.
The great enemies of that era have vanished. And it is one of history's
remarkable turns that so many young men from the new world would cross the
sea to help liberate the old. Beyond the peaceful beaches and quiet cemeteries
lies a Europe whole and free -- a continent of democratic governments and
people more free and hopeful than ever before. This freedom and these hopes
are what the heroes of D-day fought and died for. And these, in the end, are the
greatest monuments of all to the sacrifices made that day.
When I go to Europe next week, I will reaffirm the ties that bind our nations
in a common destiny. These are the ties of friendship and hard
experiences. They have seen our nations through a World War and a Cold
War. Our shared values and experiences must guide us now in our continued
partnership, and in leading the peaceful democratic revolution that continues to
this day.
We have learned that when there is conflict in Europe, America is affected,
and cannot stand by. We have learned, as well, in the years since the war that
America gains when Europe is united and peaceful.
Fifty-seven years ago today, America and the nations of Europe formed a
bond that has never been broken. And all of us incurred a debt that can never
be repaid. Today, as America dedicates our D-Day Memorial, we pray that
our country will always be worthy of the courage that delivered us from evil,
and saved the free world.
God bless America. And God bless the World War II generation.
(Applause.)
END
1:30 P.M. EDT
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