Author: admin

Source: War.gov
Well, Minister, Ambassador Kushner, Mr. Rose, Chairman Kane, distinguished guests, and most importantly, our veterans. Thank you for being here to commemorate the 82nd anniversary, 82 years young of D-Day. God bless you all.
It is a profound privilege to be with you today on these hallowed grounds. This is not merely a resting place. It is a monument to the unyielding spirit of the American warrior. A testament to the supreme sacrifices our warriors made to liberate an entire continent from the grip of tyranny. We remain ever grateful to the French government, our ally for 250 years for dedicating this land to our fallen.
For every American who visits, it is uniquely stirring to see the stars and stripes proudly flying here in eternal vigil over the thousands of crosses and stars, As a former superintendent of this cemetery once said, looking over the graves, “there they are still serving their country.”
Eighty two years ago today, the survival of Western civilization hung in the balance. Dark forces had swept across Europe. Hitler boasted that his Atlantic wall was impenetrable, but our enemy made a fatal miscalculation. They underestimated the unbreakable will of the American fighting man. The task was daunting, a frontal assault across the churning English Channel directly into beaches and cliffs fortified with iron, concrete, and heavy artillery. An impossible mission, a suicidal mission, the mission of free men. Freedom’s only hope, no turning back.
Alongside the brave forces of Great Britain, Canada, France, Norway, Poland, and our other capable and steadfast allies, the United States military spearheaded a great crusade to shatter the Nazi war machine and liberate a continent. Our troops carried with them the inspiring words of General Eisenhower, but more importantly, they carried the hopes and the prayers of a free world. They embarked into the dark, choppy waters, knowing that many would not return home.
As the ambassador said, ordinary men, extraordinary courage. Like American patriots throughout our history, from Lexington to Gettysburg, they relied on one another, trusting their brothers and their cause. Before dawn, American paratroopers and gliders plunged into the abyss, lit only by enemy tracer fire. Chaotic drops, and fierce resistance, they adapted, they rallied, and they fought. A triumph of American ingenuity and initiative over the rigid mechanized thinking of the enemy. We retain that advantage still today. Sergeant William Ashbrook of the 101st Airborne, the Screaming Eagles looked out of his plane to the site below, saying there were so many boats in the channel, he said that it seemed as if you could step out of the plane and walk to France on top of them. Speed and scale, scale only the American war machine could produce, and we are producing again today. May we learn from this past.
Later that Tuesday morning, the greatest amphibious assault in human history was unleashed. Our American warriors set out to take Omaha and Utah beaches. They rode in Higgins boats, a master stroke of American engineering, manufactured by the blue-collar grit of 20,000 workers in New Orleans. The ramps of those boats dropped, and our men threw themselves, hurled themselves into the waves and onto the blood-stained sand. The courage, the sheer courage that it took to charge into that hailstorm of machine gun fire and artillery, almost unfathomable.
I tell my kids who join us today, and they can barely relate, it barely computes. Who could? Our forefathers did what those men did here. We ask ourselves, could we, and may we always ask. The first waves of soldiers took devastating casualties, thousands of our absolute best cut down. But the American war fighter never quit. Fueled by an unwavering love of country and the men beside them, they pushed forward. They chose to face death rather than surrender or quit, and as they fought inch by bloody inch, the Atlantic wall crumbled. They were indeed the greatest generation. Farm boys from the heartland and city dwellers from the coast, teachers and shopkeepers. The Americans buried here are our very best. Full stop.
War reveals the true character of a nation and her men. The courage of the men who stormed these beaches is the courage that defines the United States of America. May it always. May we earn it. And remember what they did here. The souls here earned it, and we are blessed to have a number of such warriors in our presence again today. They are a living embodiment of the warrior ethos we today revive at the Department of War.
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