On the recordMay 25, 2017
this weekend we will mark the beginning of the Memorial Day remembrances that we do every year. Memorial Day, of course, is on Monday, but many activities will begin even today and tomorrow to honor those who have died in the defense of our country. These men and women had families, they had dreams for the future, and they had their whole lives ahead of them. But they did something extraordinary. I remember that a few years ago I had the opportunity to be at the American cemetery in Normandy. At the end of the tour of that cemetery, the guide had us sit down on a ledge with the English Channel to our back and those 8,000 graves in front of us that we had just looked at and had talked about the sacrifices made. Then he flipped open his computer and, at that exact same spot, on the 20th anniversary of the D-day, General Eisenhower--former President Eisenhower--in 1964 was talking to Walter Cronkite. He said to Walter Cronkite: You know, Walter, my son John graduated from West Point on D-day, and over the last 20 years, I have watched him and his wife raise their family and have the experiences they have had, and, he said, many times I have thought about these young men and the life they didn't get to lead because of what they were asked to do. Particularly, you had the person sitting there 20 years later who ultimately was the person who asked them to do what they were asked to do, and you understand that that is the kind of decision he thought about.…
