[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 8720-8721]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time} 1915
                  HIT THE BEACHES, JUNE 6, 1944, D-DAY

  (Mr. POE of Texas asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, at dawn, in the hard cold rain of the 
choppy English Channel, thousands of men--boys, really--aboard landing 
craft assaulted the beaches in a place called Normandy, France. They 
were under brutal enemy gunfire and artillery shelling. That was the 
morning of June 6, 1944: D-Day.
  Their buddies, the paratroopers, had earlier, before dawn, landed in 
France and met the same stiff resistance by the enemy. The Allies were 
determined to free Europe from the Nazis; and after the gunfire ceased 
and the smoke

[[Page 8721]]

cleared, the successful assault that day was costly.
  At the top of the cliffs of Normandy, among the white crosses and 
glistening Stars of David, is the national cemetery of America's war 
dead. There are 9,387 Americans buried there. The average age is 24. 
They were the initial casualties of the invasion of Europe. More 
Americans would later die in the great World War II.
  Today, we remember those who fought on June 6 and other Americans, 
like my 91-year-old dad, who went to liberate France and not to conquer 
it. These warriors are the charter members of the Greatest Generation.
  And that is just the way it is.

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