Press release

President Obama - D-Day Salute from France - delivered June 6th, 2014

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• published: 07 Jun 2014
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The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release June 06, 2014 Remarks by President Obama at the 70th Anniversary of D-Day -- Omaha Beach, Normandy Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial Omaha Beach Normandy, France 11:16 A.M. CET If prayer were made of sound, the skies over England that night would have deafened the world. Captains paced their decks. Pilots tapped their gauges. Commanders pored over maps, fully aware that for all the months of meticulous planning, everything could go wrong-- the winds, the tides, the element of surprise-- and above all, the audacious bet that what waited on the other side of the Channel would compel men not to shrink away, but to charge ahead. Fresh-faced GIs rubbed trinkets, kissed pictures of sweethearts, checked and re-checked their equipment. "God," asked one, "give me guts." And in the pre-dawn hours, planes rumbled down runways; gliders and paratroopers slipped through the sky; giant screws began to turn on an armada that looked like more ships than sea. And more than !150,000 souls set off towards this tiny sliver of sand upon which hung more than the fate of a war, but rather the course of human history. We tell this story for the old soldiers who pull themselves a little straighter today to salute brothers who never made it home. We tell the story for the daughter who clutches a faded photo of her father, forever young; for the child who runs his fingers over colorful ribbons he knows signify something of great consequence, even if he doesn't yet fully understand why. We tell this story to bear what witness we can to what happened when the boys from America reached Omaha Beach. By daybreak, blood soaked the water, bombs broke the sky. Thousands of paratroopers had dropped into the wrong landing sites; thousands of rounds bit into flesh and sand. Entire companies' worth of men fell in minutes. "Hell's Beach" had earned its name. By !8:30 a.m., General Omar Bradley expected our troops to be a mile inland. "Six hours after the landings," he wrote, "we held only ten yards of beach." In this age of instant commentary, the invasion would have swiftly and roundly been declared, as it was by one officer, "a debacle." But such a race to judgment would not have taken into account the courage of free men. By the end of that longest day, this beach had been fought, lost, refought, and won-- a piece of Europe once again liberated and free. Hitler's Wall was breached, letting loose Patton's Army to pour into France. Within a week, the world's bloodiest beach had become the world's busiest port. Within a month, one million Allied troops thundered through Normandy into Europe, and as our armies marched across the continent, one pilot said it looked "as if the very crust of the Earth had shaken loose." The Arc de Triomphe lit up for the first time in years, and Paris was punctuated by shouts of "Vive la France!" and "Vive les États-Unis Omaha-- Normandy-- this was democracy's beachhead. And our victory in that war decided not just a century, but shaped the security and well-being of all posterity. Whenever the world makes you cynical, stop and think of these men. Whenever you lose hope, stop and think of these men. And as today's wars come to an end, this generation of servicemen and women will step out of uniform, and they, too, will build families and lives of their own. They, too, will become leaders in their communities, in commerce, in industry, and perhaps politics-- the leaders we need for the beachheads of our time. And, God willing, they, too, will grow old in the land they helped to keep free. And someday, future generations, whether 70 or 700 years hence, will gather at places like this to honor them and to say that these were generations of men and women who proved once again that the United States of America is and will remain the greatest force for freedom the world has ever known. May God bless our veterans and all who served with them, including those who rest here in eternal peace. And may God bless all who serve today for the peace and security of the world. May God bless the people of France. And may God bless our United States of America See entire text at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/06/06/remarks-president-obama-70th-anniversary-d-day-omaha-beach-normandy