[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Page 10023]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




        EXPERIENCING MEMORIAL DAY CELEBRATIONS ON FOREIGN SOILS

  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I would like to call everybody's 
attention to the special day that today is. Today is the 6th day of 
June. Sixty-two years ago today on the shores of France and Normandy, 
Omaha Beach, Sword Beach, American troops and allied forces invaded 
France, pushed back the German Army, pushed through the Battle of the 
Bulge, and ultimately into Germany, and today, you and I enjoy freedom 
and liberty in this country, as Europe enjoys its freedom, and as, in 
fact, the world enjoys its freedom because of what those brave men and 
women did.
  This past week, I had a unique occasion to travel with the chairman 
of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Senator Craig from Idaho, and with 
GEN Jack Nicholson, who is the chairman of the American Battle 
Monuments Commission. We traveled through Europe and northern Africa 
paying Memorial Day tributes to the men and women buried on those 
foreign shores.
  I have to tell my colleagues, it was a life-altering experience for 
me. I am a patriotic American. I love this country more than anything 
on the face of this Earth. I have teared up more than once at the 
funeral of a friend who died in the service of this country. But I have 
never seen the outpouring of love and respect for our country or for 
our servicemen than I saw in the Netherlands or in Belgium or outside 
of Paris or at Bellewood outside of Paris or in Tunisia at the American 
cemetery in northern Africa.
  I think it is appropriate for us to memorialize today what those of 
us who traveled on this trip saw to hopefully inspire other Members of 
the Senate, and hopefully every American at one point in time in their 
life, to travel to these marvelous memorials. I have been in elected 
office for most of the last 30 years. I have done more Memorial Day 
ceremonies than one would want to count. They have all been beautiful, 
they have all been meaningful, but, quite frankly, they usually aren't 
very well attended because Americans more often than not take Memorial 
Day as a 3-day vacation or a 3-day weekend. But I would like to tell 
you what the people of Margraten in the Netherlands take Memorial Day 
as.
  When we went to the American cemetery in the Netherlands and saw the 
over 6,000 graves of the American men and women who died in liberating 
the Netherlands, we were moved. We were more moved by the fact that 
every one of those graves is adopted by a citizen of the Netherlands 
who cares for that grave, leaves flowers at that grave, and attends the 
ceremonies on Memorial Day, the American Memorial Day, which we 
conduct. On that day in the Netherlands there were over 7,000 
citizens--7,000 Dutch--who came to pay tribute to the men and women of 
the United States of America who died on their soil so they could be 
free. The royal Dutch Air Force did a missing man fly-over formation, 
and the senior men's choir of Holland sang ``God Bless America.'' It 
was a moving scene unlike anything I have personally seen. It renewed, 
for me, the faith and pride I have in all that is good about the United 
States of America.
  Following that visit, we went to Normandy. We saw the monument the 
French had erected to the Rangers who stormed the Normandy cliffs and 
moved in and rooted out the Germans. We went to Omaha Beach and saw 
firsthand where the American troops came across, where the Canadian 
troops came across, where the British troops came across. We saw where 
in one day 2,500 men of America died on the beaches of Normandy so that 
all of us today can live in freedom and in hope and in peace.
  I commend Chairman Craig for making this delegation. We found out we 
were the first delegation that anyone could remember to ever do what we 
did. Not only do I hope we are not the last, I hope it is an annual 
occasion where Members of the Senate go and pay their respects to the 
brave Americans who died in the great wars of Europe, World War I and 
World War II; for without them, we would not enjoy what we do today, 
nor would the world enjoy the peace and the freedom and the liberty 
that it treasures and it enjoys.
  So on this day of June 6, 2006, 62 years after 2,500 Americans died 
and tens of thousands of Americans pursued the German Army in France, I 
know what I will do tonight when I say my prayers. I will say a special 
prayer for those folks I never knew but without whom I never could have 
lived the life that I have, and I will say thanks. I will repeat the 
pledge I made to myself on the cemetery of Normandy. I said: Before I 
die, I am going to see to it that my children and my grandchildren get 
to visit this scene and have this experience because only through the 
preservation of the memory of what those men fought and died for will 
we as Americans ever be able to continue to make the commitments we 
have around the world to preserve liberty, preserve democracy, and 
protect the people of the world's right to determine their own future 
and their own peace and their own liberty.
  So, Mr. President, on this day, June 6, 2006, I thank God for the men 
and women of the U.S. military, for the leadership of the 20th century, 
and pray that all of us will have the courage they had to continue to 
preserve the liberty we all treasure and enjoy.
  I yield the floor.

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