Political Quotes

“I thank my friend and colleague and one- time President pro tempore of this body, Senator Leahy. 75th Anniversary of D-Day Mr. President, I am here on the floor today to talk about D-Day, to talk about how we would remember the 75th anniversary tomorrow of a turning point in World War II: June 6, 1944, the invasion of Normandy. Historian Douglas Brinkley has written that D-Day was both the single most important in the 20th century and one of the bloodiest and most tragic, too, in terms of loss of life. On D-Day, our fleets set forth from the rocky shores of Britain to reach the fog-shrouded beaches of Normandy. On board the thousands of ships and planes were our fathers and grandfathers and great- grandfathers--some no older than 18 years old--who would bravely venture ashore in a show of determination and duty. There were 160,000 soldiers who crossed the English Channel that day. On their backs were rucksacks, some weighing over 80 pounds. But really on their backs was the fate of our allies in Europe and, really, the fate of the free world. Were our men to fail that day, Europe might well have fallen to Hitler once and for all. Many of our best and brightest young Americans did fall. We lost more than 10,000 men that day. The Nazis had spent 2 years fortifying the coast to prepare for this moment. It was Hitler's so-called Atlantic Wall. The beautiful coastline of northern France was covered in barbed wire, landmines, and bunkers.…”