Today's Date:

Mr. President,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

In the spring of 1940, France was invaded and humiliated. In the space of just four weeks its army--ill-prepared for the war but facing the enemy courageously--had lost 120,000 soldiers who had sacrificed their lives in vain to defend their country. France's population was fleeing before the aggressor. The government had collapsed. Those were the grimmest of days. Days of darkness and despair. Under the brute strength of tyranny, an entire people found itself suddenly deprived of liberty and freedom. The future looked bleak and there seemed to be no reasons for hope.

In the midst of total disaster however, one man stood tall, surrounded by just a few. General Charles de Gaulle went to London and, on June 18, 1940, speaking through a microphone of the British Broadcasting Corporation, called for the French to join him, refuse to lay down their weapons, and resist. Resist and fight!

With an astonishing premonition of what would happen four years later, on the longest day following the longest winter, General de Gaulle rekindled hope in the hearts of the French people by saying: "France does not stand alone! She is not isolated. Behind her is a vast empire, and she can make common cause with the British Empire, which commands the seas and is continuing the struggle. Like England, she can draw unreservedly on the immense industrial resources of the United States.

On June 6, 1944, General de Gaulle's vision became a reality. Under the command of General Eisenhower, 70,000 Americans, together with British, Canadian, French and other allied companions-in-arms, set foot on the beaches of Normandy. Our American allies were following the path of Pershing's army during World War I and answering the call of Lafayette during the War of Independence. Like the men of Rochambeau in Yorktown, they had crossed the sea in the service of liberty: they were soldiers of free nations up in arms against oppression.

In the cold mist of that gray morning, the powerful armada of Operation Overlord brought the liberators to the soil of France where they broke through the wall of fire set off by the enemy. Omaha, Utah, Juno, Gold, Sword... the code names given to the beaches resonate today as as many synonyms of freedom. A freedom paid dearly by those who fell in the sand never to rise again. The soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice--among them the twenty-one brave boys from Bedford--were young men in the prime of their lives. They served their country and its core values in the world's most powerful and well trained army. But they were also good sons, nephews, boyfriends who had left behind the warmth of their homes tucked away in a generous country. Their future was stolen from them by a faraway war. Yet what they fought for were universal values. And in defending a battered Europe under the Nazi yoke, they defended the very foundations of their nation and their country's collective past and future.

They joined forces with The French Resistance--the underground Organization of 500,000 men and women--who had secretly paved the way for their D-Day landing. Their conjunction would in a few weeks liberate Paris, and in a few months all of France, opening up the path to the final Victory.

Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

France does not forget! I want to express the profound gratitude of my country to all the veterans who risked their lives in this great and decisive battle. The Memorial we are inaugurating today is a well-deserved tribute to the young men and women who fought in Normandy. Thanks to them, the ideals upon which our two nations have been founded remain the solid bases of our societies. They also remain the fundamental inspiration of the extraordinary French-American friendship and alliance that transcends the centuries. On behalf of the French people, your oldest ally, allow me to say, once again,

thank you America!

God bless the United States !

Vive la France !