[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 44, Number 48 (Monday, December 8, 2008)]
[Pages 1480-1481]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Signing the National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day 

Proclamation and the Proclamation To Establish the World War II Valor in 

the Pacific National Monument

December 5, 2008

    The President. Thank you all for coming. I am going to sign two 
documents: one a Pearl Harbor Day Proclamation, and the other creating 
the World War II Valor in Pacific National Monument. The national 
monument will include nine sites: five in Hawaii, three in Alaska, and 
one in California at the Tule Lake Segregation Center, where Japanese 
Americans were detained during World War II.
    The purpose of the monument is to remind generations of Americans of 
the sacrifices that Americans made to protect our country. But there's a 
broader purpose as well, and that is to remind generations of Americans 
about the transformative effect of freedom.
    One of the great stories of--during World War II was that people 
fought bitterly to defend our country and way of life, and then worked 
to help our enemies develop democracies according to their own cultures 
and their own history. And today I am so pleased to report that Japan is 
a strong ally of the United States of America, an ally in defending our 
liberties, and an ally in spreading liberty as the great ideological 
alternative to an enemy that still wants to do us harm.
    And so this monument will help people realize the breadth and the 
history of World War II and its aftermath.
    So I'm pleased to sign both documents, and I want to thank our 
distinguished visitors for joining me.

[At this point, the President signed the proclamations.]

    The President. Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 10:25 a.m. in the Oval Office at the White 
House.

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