[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 22]
[House]
[Page 30351]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             THE FRENCH PRESIDENT AND THE AMERICAN SOLDIER

  (Mr. POE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, the French president addressed a joint session 
of Congress today, and he, like General Lafayette before him, talked 
about the American soldier, the warrior's courage, determination, 
resilience and love of freedom more than life itself.
  As we approach Veterans Day, French President Nicolas Sarkozy's words 
are appropriate to show how the world, that has benefited from the 
American GI, view our military.
  He said this morning:
  ``The men and women of my generation heard their grandparents talk 
about how in 1917 America saved France at a time when it had reached 
the final limits of its strength.
  ``The men and women of my generation heard their parents talk about 
how in 1944 America returned to free Europe from the horrifying tyranny 
that threatened to enslave it.
  ``Fathers took their sons to see the vast cemeteries where, under 
thousands of white crosses so far from home, thousands of young 
American soldiers lay who had fallen not to defend their own freedom 
but the freedom of all others, not to defend their own families, their 
own homeland, but to defend humanity as a whole.''
  Mr. Speaker, the world's freedom fighter has always been the American 
soldier.
  And that's just the way it is.

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