Bill Clinton: “Thank you, Colonel McIntosh, for those remarkable words and your remarkable service. General Shalikashvili, Secretary…”

“Thank you, Colonel McIntosh, for those remarkable words and your remarkable service. General Shalikashvili, Secretary Perry, Secretary Brown, Father Sampson, Members of Congress, members of the Armed Forces, distinguished guests, American veterans all, and especially to our most honored guests, the veterans of the Second World War: Fifty years ago on this day the guns of war in Europe fell silent. A long shadow that had been cast on the entire Continent was lifted. Freedom's warriors rejoiced. We come today, 50 years later, to recall their triumph, to remember their sacrifice, and to rededicate ourselves to the ideals for which they fought and for which so many of them died. By Victory Day in Europe, from the beaches of Normandy to the gates of Moscow, some 40 million people lost their lives in World War II. These enormous but faceless numbers hid millions upon millions of personal tragedies: soldiers shot and shattered by weapons of war, prisoners cut down by disease and starvation, children buried in the rubble of bombed-out buildings, and entire families exterminated solely because of the blood that ran in their veins. And for every death, so many more fell wounded, physically and emotionally. They would survive, but their lives would be changed forever. At war's end, an 8-year-old boy, already a veteran of air raids and bomb shelters, was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up.…”