Tuesday, June 6, 2006

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Floor Statement on the 62nd Anniversary of D-Day
and Visit to American Cemeteries in Europe, Africa 
Remarks as Delivered on the Senate Floor

Mr. President, I would like to call everybody's attention to the special day that today is. Today is the 6th day of June. Sixty-two years ago today on the shores of France and Normandy, Omaha Beach, Sword Beach, American troops and allied forces invaded France, pushed back the German Army, pushed through the Battle of the Bulge, and ultimately into Germany, and today, you and I enjoy freedom and liberty in this country, as Europe enjoys its freedom, and as, in fact, the world enjoys its freedom because of what those brave men and women did.

This past week, I had a unique occasion to travel with the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Senator Craig from Idaho, and with GEN Jack Nicholson, who is the chairman of the American Battle Monuments Commission. We traveled through Europe and northern Africa paying Memorial Day tributes to the men and women buried on those foreign shores.

I have to tell my colleagues, it was a life-altering experience for me. I am a patriotic American. I love this country more than anything on the face of this Earth. I have teared up more than once at the funeral of a friend who died in the service of this country. But I have never seen the outpouring of love and respect for our country or for our servicemen than I saw in the Netherlands or in Belgium or outside of Paris or at Bellewood outside of Paris or in Tunisia at the American cemetery in northern Africa.

I think it is appropriate for us to memorialize today what those of us who traveled on this trip saw to hopefully inspire other Members of the Senate, and hopefully every American at one point in time in their life, to travel to these marvelous memorials. I have been in elected office for most of the last 30 years. I have done more Memorial Day ceremonies than one would want to count. They have all been beautiful, they have all been meaningful, but, quite frankly, they usually aren't very well attended because Americans more often than not take Memorial Day as a 3-day vacation or a 3-day weekend. But I would like to tell you what the people of Margraten in the Netherlands take Memorial Day as.

When we went to the American cemetery in the Netherlands and saw the over 6,000 graves of the American men and women who died in liberating the Netherlands, we were moved. We were more moved by the fact that every one of those graves is adopted by a citizen of the Netherlands who cares for that grave, leaves flowers at that grave, and attends the ceremonies on Memorial Day, the American Memorial Day, which we conduct. On that day in the Netherlands there were over 7,000 citizens--7,000 Dutch--who came to pay tribute to the men and women of the United States of America who died on their soil so they could be free. The royal Dutch Air Force did a missing man fly-over formation, and the senior men's choir of Holland sang ``God Bless America.'' It was a moving scene unlike anything I have personally seen. It renewed, for me, the faith and pride I have in all that is good about the United States of America.

Following that visit, we went to Normandy. We saw the monument the French had erected to the Rangers who stormed the Normandy cliffs and moved in and rooted out the Germans. We went to Omaha Beach and saw firsthand where the American troops came across, where the Canadian troops came across, where the British troops came across. We saw where in one day 2,500 men of America died on the beaches of Normandy so that all of us today can live in freedom and in hope and in peace.

I commend Chairman Craig for making this delegation. We found out we were the first delegation that anyone could remember to ever do what we did. Not only do I hope we are not the last, I hope it is an annual occasion where Members of the Senate go and pay their respects to the brave Americans who died in the great wars of Europe, World War I and World War II; for without them, we would not enjoy what we do today, nor would the world enjoy the peace and the freedom and the liberty that it treasures and it enjoys.

So on this day of June 6, 2006, 62 years after 2,500 Americans died and tens of thousands of Americans pursued the German Army in France, I know what I will do tonight when I say my prayers. I will say a special prayer for those folks I never knew but without whom I never could have lived the life that I have, and I will say thanks. I will repeat the pledge I made to myself on the cemetery of Normandy. I said: Before I die, I am going to see to it that my children and my grandchildren get to visit this scene and have this experience because only through the preservation of the memory of what those men fought and died for will we as Americans ever be able to continue to make the commitments we have around the world to preserve liberty, preserve democracy, and protect the people of the world's right to determine their own future and their own peace and their own liberty.

So, Mr. President, on this day, June 6, 2006, I thank God for the men and women of the U.S. military, for the leadership of the 20th century, and pray that all of us will have the courage they had to continue to preserve the liberty we all treasure and enjoy.