[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 40, Number 23 (Monday, June 7, 2004)]
[Pages 969-972]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the Dedication of the National World War II Memorial

May 29, 2004

    Thank you all very much. I'm honored to join with President Clinton, 
President Bush, Senator Dole, and other distinguished guests on this day 
of remembrance and celebration. And General Kelley, here in the company 
of the generation that won the war, I proudly

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accept the World War II Memorial on behalf of the people of the United 
States of America.
    Raising up this Memorial took skill and vision and patience. Now the 
work is done, and it is a fitting tribute, open and expansive like 
America, grand and enduring like the achievements we honor. The years of 
World War II were a hard, heroic, and gallant time in the life of our 
country. When it mattered most, an entire generation of Americans showed 
the finest qualities of our Nation and of humanity. On this day, in 
their honor, we will raise the American flag over a monument that will 
stand as long as America itself.
    In the history books, the Second World War can appear as a series of 
crises and conflicts, following an inevitable course from Pearl Harbor 
to the coast of Normandy to the deck of the Missouri. Yet, on the day 
the war began and on many hard days that followed, the outcome was far 
from certain.
    There was a time in the years before the war, when many earnest and 
educated people believed that democracy was finished. Men who considered 
themselves learned and civilized came to believe that free institutions 
must give way to the severe doctrines and stern discipline of a 
regimented society. Ideas first whispered in the secret councils of a 
remote empire or shouted in the beer halls of Munich became mass 
movements. And those movements became armies. And those armies moved 
mercilessly forward until the world saw Hitler strutting in Paris and 
U.S. Navy ships burning in their own port. Across the world, from a 
hiding place in Holland to prison camps of Luzon, the captives awaited 
their liberators.
    Those liberators would come, but the enterprise would require the 
commitment and effort of our entire Nation. As World War II began, after 
a decade of economic depression, the United States was not a rich 
country. Far from being a great power, we had only the 17th largest army 
in the world. To fight and win on two fronts, Americans had to work and 
save and ration and sacrifice as never before. War production plants 
operated shifts around the clock. Across the country, families planted 
victory gardens, 20 million of them, producing 40 percent of the 
Nation's vegetables in backyards and on rooftops. Two out of every three 
citizens put money into war bonds. As Col. Oveta Culp Hobby said, ``This 
was a people's war, and everyone was in it.''
    As life changed in America, so did the way that Americans saw our 
own country and its place in the world. The bombs at Pearl Harbor 
destroyed the very idea that America could live in isolation from the 
plots of aggressive powers. The scenes of the concentration camps, the 
heaps of bodies and ghostly survivors, confirmed forever America's 
calling to oppose the ideologies of death.
    As we defended our ideals, we began to see that America is stronger 
when those ideals are fully implemented. America gained strength because 
women labored for victory and factory jobs, cared for the wounded, and 
wore the uniform themselves. America gained strength because African 
Americans and Japanese Americans and others fought for their country, 
which wasn't always fair to them. In time, these contributions became 
expectations of equality, and the advances for justice in postwar 
America made us a better country.
    With all our flaws, Americans at that time had never been more 
united. And together we began and completed the largest single task in 
our history. At the height of conflict, America would have ships on 
every ocean and armies on five continents and, on the most crucial of 
days, would move the equivalent of a major city across the English 
Channel.
    And all these vast movements of men and armor were directed by one 
man who could not walk on his own strength. President Roosevelt brought 
his own advantages to the job. His resolve was stronger than the will of 
any dictator. His belief in democracy was absolute. He possessed a 
daring that kept the enemy guessing. He spoke to Americans with an 
optimism that lightened their task. And one of the saddest days of the 
war came just as it was ending, when the casualty notice in the morning 
paper began with the name Franklin D. Roosevelt, Commander in Chief.
    Across the years, we still know his voice. And from his words, we 
know that he understood the character of the American people. Dictators 
and their generals had dismissed Americans as no match for a master 
race.

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FDR answered them. In one of his radio addresses, he said, ``We have 
been described as a nation of weaklings, playboys. Let them tell that to 
General MacArthur and his men. Let them tell that to the boys in the 
flying fortresses. Let them tell that to the marines.''
    In all, more than 16 million Americans would put on the uniform of 
the soldier, the sailor, the airman, the marine, the coast guardsman, or 
the merchant mariner. They came from city streets and prairie towns, 
from public high schools and West Point. They were a modest bunch and 
still are. The ranks were filled with men like Army Private Joe Sakato. 
In heavy fighting in France, he saw a good friend killed and charged up 
the hill determined to shoot the ones who did it. Private Sakato ran 
straight into enemy fire, killing 12, wounding two, capturing four, and 
inspiring his whole unit to take the hill and destroy the enemy. Looking 
back on it 55 years later, Joe Sakato said, ``I'm not a hero. Nowadays 
they call what I did `road rage.' '' [Laughter]
    This man's conduct that day gained him the Medal of Honor, one of 
464 awarded for actions in World War II. Americans in uniform served 
bravely, fought fiercely, and kept their honor even under the worst of 
conditions. Yet they were not warriors by nature. All they wanted was to 
finish the job and make it home. One soldier in the 58th Armor Field 
Artillery was known to have the best-kept rifle in the unit. He told his 
buddies he had plans for that weapon after the war. He said, ``I want to 
take it home, cover it in salt, hang it on a wall in my living room so I 
can watch it rust.''
    These were the modest sons of a peaceful country, and millions of us 
are very proud to call them dad. They gave the best years of their lives 
to the greatest mission their country ever accepted. They faced the most 
extreme danger, which took some and spared others for reasons only known 
to God. And wherever they advanced or touched ground, they are 
remembered for their goodness and their decency. A Polish man recalls 
being marched through the German countryside in the last weeks of the 
war, when American forces suddenly appeared. He said, ``Our two guards 
ran away. And this soldier with little blonde hair jumps off his tank. 
`You're free,' he shouts at us. We started hugging each other, crying, 
and screaming, `God sent angels down to pick us up out of this hell 
place.' ''
    Well, our boys weren't exactly angels. They were flesh and blood, 
with all the limits and fears of flesh and blood. That only makes the 
achievement more remarkable--the courage they showed in a conflict that 
claimed more than 400,000 American lives, leaving so many orphans and 
widows and Gold Star Mothers.
    The soldiers' story was best told by the great Ernie Pyle, who 
shared their lives and died among them. In his book ``Here Is Your 
War,'' he described World War II as many veterans now remember it. It is 
a picture, he wrote, ``of tired and dirty soldiers, who are alive and 
don't want to die, of long, darkened convoys in the middle of the night, 
of shocked, silent men wandering back down the hill from battle, of 
Jeeps and petrol dumps and smelly bedding rolls and C-rations and blown 
bridges and dead mules and hospital tents and shirt collars greasy-black 
from months of wearing and of laughter too, and anger and wine and 
lovely flowers and constant cussing. All these, it is composed of and of 
graves and graves and graves.''
    On this Memorial Day weekend, the graves will be visited and 
decorated with flowers and flags. Men whose step has slowed are thinking 
of boys they knew when they were boys together. And women who watched 
the train leave and the years pass can still see the handsome face of 
their young sweetheart. America will not forget them either.
    At this place, at this Memorial, we acknowledge a debt of long-
standing to an entire generation of Americans, those who died, those who 
fought and worked and grieved and went on. They saved our country and 
thereby saved the liberty of mankind. And now I ask every man and woman 
who saw and lived World War II, every member of that generation to 
please rise as you are able and receive the thanks of our great Nation.
    May God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 3:09 p.m. on the Mall. In his remarks, he 
referred to former Senator Bob Dole, national chairman, World War II 
Memorial Campaign; and Gen P.X. Kelley, USMC

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(Ret.), chairman, American Battle Monuments Commission.