[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 70 (Tuesday, June 6, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H3413]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
D-DAY AND THE YOUNG AMERICANS
(Mr. POE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, the silent ocean roar now covers the
battlefields on the shores of France.
They fought for a people they did not know in a place they had never
been and consecrated the soil of freedom by the self-sacrifice of their
own blood.
There are 9,386 Americans buried on the cliffs of Normandy, France.
1,557 are still missing 62 years later. They gave their youth so Europe
could have a tomorrow. They came not to conquer, but to set a people
free. That D-Day invasion of France was the beginning of the liberation
of Europe.
Those that served that day jumped from the sky in the darkness, or
went ashore in the face of massive gunfire. They were the young
Americans that went to land in Normandy on June 6, 1944. They defeated
the evil forces of the Axis and they did not come back until it was
over over there.
History refers to those that died and those that lived as the
Greatest Generation. They are our fathers and our grandfathers. They
defended the honor of liberty and proved there is something worth
fighting for, and there is something worth dying for. And that's just
the way it is.
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