[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book I)]
[June 6, 1994]
[Pages 1042-1043]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 1042]]


Remarks on the 50th Anniversary of D-Day at Pointe du Hoc in Normandy, 
France
June 6, 1994

    General Downing, Mr. Hathaway, honored leaders of our military, 
distinguished veterans and members of the armed services, family and 
friends, my fellow Americans. We stand on sacred soil. Fifty years ago 
at this place a miracle of liberation began. On that morning, 
democracy's forces landed to end the enslavement of Europe.
    Around 7 a.m., Lieutenant Colonel James Earl Rudder, 2d Ranger 
Battalion, United States Army, led 224 men onto the beaches below and up 
these unforgiving cliffs. Bullets and grenades came down upon them, but 
by a few minutes after 7, here, exactly here, the first Rangers stood. 
Today let us ask those American heroes to stand again. [Applause]
    Corporal Ken Bargmann, who sits here to my right, was one of them. 
He had just celebrated his 20th birthday out in the Channel, a young man 
like all the rest of them, cold and wet, far from home, preparing for 
the challenge of his life. Ken Bargmann and the other Rangers of Pointe 
du Hoc and all the other Americans, British, Canadian, and Free French 
who landed, were the tip of a spear the free world had spent years 
sharpening, a spear they began on this morning in 1944 to plunge into 
the heart of the Nazi empire. Most of them were new to war, but all were 
armed with the ingenuity of free citizens and the confidence that they 
fought for a good cause under the gaze of a loving God.
    The fortunate ones would go home, changed forever. Thousands would 
never return. And today we mourn their loss. But on that gray dawn, 
millions, literally millions, of people on this continent awaited their 
arrival. Young Anne Frank wrote in her diary these words: ``It's no 
exaggeration to say that all Amsterdam, all Holland, yes, the whole west 
coast of Europe talks about the invasion day and night, debates about 
it, makes bets on it, and hopes. I have the feeling friends are 
approaching.''
    The young men who came fought for the very survival of democracy. 
Just 4 years earlier, some thought democracy's day had passed. Hitler 
was rolling across Europe. In America, factories worked at only half 
capacity. Our people were badly divided over what to do. The future 
seemed to belong to the dictators. They sneered at democracy, its 
mingling of races and religions, its tolerance of dissent. They were 
sure we didn't have what it took.
    Well, they didn't know James Rudder or Ken Bargmann or the other men 
of D-Day. The didn't understand what happens when the free unite behind 
a great and worthy cause. For human miracles begin with personal 
choices, millions of them gathered together as one, like the stars of a 
majestic galaxy. Here at this place, in Britain, in North America, and 
among Resistance fighters in France and across Europe, all those 
numberless choices came together, the choices of lion-hearted leaders to 
rally their people, the choices of people to mobilize for freedom's 
fight, the choices of their soldiers to carry on that fight into a world 
worn weary by devastation and despair.
    Every person in the democracies pitched in. Every shipbuilder who 
built a landing craft, every woman who worked in a factory, every farmer 
who grew food for the troops, every miner who carved coal out of a 
cavern, every child who tended a victory garden, all of them did their 
part. All produced things with their hands and their hearts that went 
into this battle. And on D-Day, all across the free world, the peoples 
of democracy prayed that they had done their job right. Well, they had 
done their job right.
    And here, you, the Army Rangers, did yours. Your mission was to 
scale these cliffs and destroy the howitzers at the top that threatened 
every Allied soldier and ship within miles. You fired grappling hooks 
onto the cliff tops. You waded to shore, and you began to climb up on 
ropes slick with sea and sand, up, as the Germans shot down and tried to 
cut your lines, up, sometimes holding to the cliffs with nothing but the 
knives you had and your own bare hands.
    As the battle raged at Juno, Sword, and Gold, on Omaha and Utah, you 
took devastating casualties. But you also took control of these 
commanding heights. Around 9 a.m., two Rangers discovered the big guns 
hidden inland and dis-


[[Page 1043]]

abled them with heat grenades. At the moment, you became the first 
Americans on D-Day to complete your mission.
    We look at this terrain and we marvel at your fight. We look around 
us and we see what you were fighting for. For here are the daughters of 
Colonel Rudder. Here are the son and grandson of Corporal Bargmann. Here 
are the faces for whom you risked your lives. Here are the generations 
for whom you won a war. We are the children of your sacrifice. We are 
the sons and daughters you saved from tyranny's reach. We grew up behind 
the shield of the strong alliances you forged in blood upon these 
beaches, on the shores of the Pacific, and in the skies above. We 
flourished in the Nation you came home to build.
    The most difficult days of your lives bought us 50 years of freedom. 
You did your job; now we must do ours. Let us begin by teaching our 
young people about the villainy that started this war and the valor that 
ended it. Let us carry on the work you began here. The sparks of freedom 
you struck on these beaches were never extinguished, even in the darkest 
days behind the Iron Curtain. Five years ago the miracle of liberation 
was repeated as the rotting timbers of communism came tumbling down.
    Now we stand at the start of a new day. The Soviet empire is gone. 
So many people who fought as our partners in this war, the Russians, the 
Poles, and others, now stand again as our partners in peace and 
democracy. Our work is far from done. Still there are cliffs to scale. 
We must work to contain the world's most deadly weapons, to expand the 
reach of democracy. We must keep ready arms and strong alliances. We 
must have strong families and cohesive societies and educated citizens 
and vibrant, open, economies that promote cooperation, not conflict.
    And if we should ever falter, we need only remember you at this spot 
50 years ago and you, again, at this spot today. The flame of your youth 
became freedom's lamp, and we see its light reflected in your faces 
still and in the faces of your children and grandchildren.
    We commit ourselves, as you did, to keep that lamp burning for those 
who will follow. You completed your mission here. But the mission of 
freedom goes on; the battle continues. The ``longest day'' is not yet 
over.
    God bless you, and God bless America.

Note: The President spoke at 8:45 a.m. In his remarks, he referred to 
Gen. William A. Downing, USA, commander in chief, U.S. Special 
Operations Command, and D-Day veteran Richard Hathaway, president, 
Ranger Battalions Association of World War II, who introduced the 
President.