[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 10160]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          REMEMBERING NORMANDY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Daniel E. Lungren of California). Under 
a previous order of the House, the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa) 
is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I rise with my colleague from California (Mr. 
Hunter), the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, to recognize 
that it is now the 61st year to remember Normandy, to remember that 
special time when the world waited and hoped that the allies, led by 
the United States, dominated by the United States, would free Europe, 
the European mainland, from the effects of fascism, the effects of 
allowing a petty dictator to build an Army and begin expanding his 
borders.
  Mr. Speaker, I find it particularly appropriate that just a week ago 
at the Memorial Day commemoration at Mt. Soledad in San Diego where 
Congressman Hunter and I both live, we were faced with the exact same 
situation that we see in Normandy: crosses. We were faced looking at a 
memorial that remembers all of our fallen heroes from previous wars 
that was put there because of our fallen heroes of the Korean War and 
now is in jeopardy of being taken away because somebody says that if it 
is in the shape of a cross, it must by definition be a religious 
statement.
  My colleague and I, I believe, are here tonight to remember Normandy 
and remember those many crosses that we have seen across the land and 
above the cliffs of Normandy and remember that those crosses do not 
stand for Jesus Christ or for religion. Those crosses stand for the men 
and women buried below.
  With that, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), my 
colleague, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding, and I 
think it is appropriate to recall the days of Normandy.
  The gentleman said those days when the world waited to find out 
whether or not that very difficult mission would be successful, and you 
know, the theme I think that we should take from Normandy or the 
message from Normandy was that our soldiers came not to conquer but to 
liberate. That is consistent with the American theme throughout the 
last century, and it is consistent with the theme that is being carried 
out by about 130,000 men and women in the sands of the Iraqi desert 
right now.
  And that is, that all the wars that we fought in the last century, 
wars in which we lost 619,000 Americans killed in action on the 
battlegrounds and the oceans and the airways of the various wars, we 
did not conquer, we did not covet land. When we won the Spanish 
American War, we gave back Cuba and the Philippines, gave them their 
freedom. When we went to save Europe the first time, we gave back all 
that ground that had been hard won by the Marines at Bellawood and by 
the U.S. Army and so many difficult battles. In World War II, having 
liberated Europe a second time in that century, we gave back all that 
land that had been so dearly won.
  And today, in Iraq, we are not engaged in military operations so that 
we can somehow derive material benefits from that country or somehow 
enslave the inhabitants of that country and turn them toward our 
political benefit and our economic benefit.
  We do it because we think that it is in the interests of the United 
States to spread freedom, to change the world, and I think lots of 
Americans understand that if we do not change the world, the world is 
going to change us.
  Those heroes who have won now some 45,000 Bronze Stars for 
meritorious service and for valor in the battlefields of Iraq and 
Afghanistan I think are every bit as courageous and, in many cases, are 
related to and the descendants of those incredible people who climbed 
the cliffs at Normandy and went up those beaches.
  Some of those landing craft opened up and the Americans were machine 
gunned before they could get out of the craft, and there were men 
bobbing in those waves, some of them dead before they hit the water. 
Others got to the beach and went down, and you can see the dramatic 
newsreels that show Americans falling as they are taking that beach, 
and then still others got to the base of the cliffs, and then some 
scaled those cliffs.
  Of course, we had others that came in, paratroopers, some of whom 
landed in dug-in positions that the enemy had established and were 
killed before their chutes could reach the ground. Others that went in 
in gliders, not an avocation that is conducive to longevity, and others 
simply went in the old-fashioned way, but they went in for freedom. 
They went in for America, and they liberated, and that is the theme of 
Normandy.
  I thank my colleague for yielding this time.
  Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and I thank the Speaker 
for the opportunity to remind the world that the only land we ever 
covet are the small plots around the world in which we bury our dead.

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