PRESIDENT BUSH: Your Majesty; Mr. Prime Minister; Mr. Mayor;
distinguished officials of The Netherlands; veterans and their families,
including the 104th Infantry Division, known as the Timberwolves; the
unit of Harold B. Welch -- my father-in-law, the father of First Lady
Laura Bush -- Congressman Hoekstra; General Jones, General Franks;
Superintendent Schwind; fellow Americans and friends:
On this peaceful May morning we commemorate a great victory for
liberty, and the thousands of white marble crosses and Stars of David
underscore the terrible price we pay for that victory. For the Americans
who rest here, Dutch soil provides a fitting home. It was from a Dutch
port that many of our pilgrim fathers first sailed for America. It was a
Dutch port that gave the American flag its first gun salute. It was the
Dutch who became one of the first foreign nations to recognize the
independence of the new United States of America. And when American
soldiers returned to this continent to fight for freedom, they were led
by a President who owed his family name to this great land -- Roosevelt.
Some of those brave troops are here with us today, and we welcome you
and we honor you. And they're here with their Dutch comrades. They share
a love of liberty. In the war that came to an end 60 years ago this day,
all those who fought for freedom made sacrifice, and many gave their
lives.
In the Voice of America's radio broadcast from London on the first
V-E Day, the announcer asked Europe to "think of these Americans as your
dead, too." In Dutch hearts, they already were. The Americans saw the
Dutch spirit in action within weeks of liberation, when this new
cemetery marked its first Memorial Day. It was still a time of hardship
and want and depravation; yet Dutch citizens from 60 local villages
collected 20 truckloads of flowers so that every American grave here
would be decorated when the sun came up on Memorial Day.
And in the six decades since, the Dutch have continued this wonderful
tradition by adopting and attending to the graves of the people they
never met. Your kindness has brought comfort to thousands of American
families separated from their loved ones here by an ocean. And on behalf
of a grateful America, I thank you for treating our men and women as
your sons and daughters.
Today we join them at this hallowed ground. We come first to remember
the young Americans who did not live to comb gray hair. Each man or
woman buried here is more than a headstone and a serial number; each
person here has a name that is precious to some family. And in faded
black and white photographs, each one here looks back at us in the full
glow of youth: the fresh-faced American in uniform; the newly minted
officer with a smiling sweetheart on his or her arm; or the young dad
traveling, holding a baby son or daughter on his knee. Every one of
these Americans added his own unique contribution to the story of
freedom.
In this cemetery lies Willy F. James, Jr., one of seven African
American soldiers from the second world war to win the Medal of Honor.
On this memorial wall is inscribed the name, Raymond Kelly, a young man
studying to be a priest in Detroit, who could have sat out the war, but
gave up his exemption to serve his country. And in this ground rests
Maurice Rose, the brilliant division commander who led the first Allied
troops into Germany. Here they rest in honored glory with thousands of
their comrades in arms, and here we come to affirm the great debt we owe
them.
We come to this ground to recall the evil these Americans fought
against. For Holland, the war began with the bombing of Rotterdam. The
destruction of Rotterdam would be a signpost to the terror and humanity
that the Nazi lie would impose on this continent. Like so much of
Europe, over the next years of occupation, Holland would come to know
curfews, and oppression, and armed bands with yellow stars, and
deportation for its Jewish citizens.
The winter just before liberation was the worst. When Dutch railway
workers went on strike to make it harder for the German army to
reinforce their troops, the Nazis responded with a blockade that made
fuel and food even more scarce. Amsterdam would wait for liberation
longer than almost any other city in Europe. Before it came, more than
20,000 Dutch men and women and children would perish in what was called
the "hongerwinter," and many others were reduced to eating tulip bulbs
to stay alive.
For some, V-E Day brought hope for normalcy, after almost five long
years of occupation. For many others, including a Jewish girl named Anne
Frank, hiding in an attic, V-E Day would come too late, two months after
the institutionalized evil of Bergen-Belsen took her young life. And for
still others, V-E Day would bring a lasting sense of solidarity with
those who fought. One resistance leader put it well: "We are one
because, together, we believed in something."
And so we come to this ground to remember the cause for which these
soldiers fought and triumphed. At the outset of the war, there were
those who believed that democracy was too soft to survive, especially
against a Nazi Germany, that boasted the most professional,
well-equipped and highly-trained military forces in the world. Yet, this
military would be brought down by a coalition of armies from our
democratic allies and freedom fighters from occupied lands and
underground resistance leaders. They fought side-by-side with American
GIs, who, only months before, had been farmers and bank clerks and
factory hands. And the world's tyrants learned a lesson: There is no
power like the power of freedom, and no soldier as strong as a soldier
who fights for that freedom.
Private Robert Lee Rutledge was one of those soldiers. He gave
his life fighting against a brutal attack by two Nazi divisions. Weeks
before he died, he wrote a letter to his daughter on her fifth birthday.
The letter was addressed to little Ginger Rutledge in Lumpkin, Georgia.
Private Rutledge told his daughter, "You're too young to understand it
now, but you will later. It's all for your benefit. You came into a free
world, and I want you to finish in one."
Sixty years later, Ginger is still free, and she does understand. And
so do her three children and eight grandchildren. Private Rutledge did
his job well, and the men who fought and bled and died here with him
accomplished what they came for. The free America that Ginger grew up in
was saved by their courage. The free Europe where many of them lie
buried was built on their sacrifice. And the free and peaceful world
that we hope to leave to our own children is inspired by their example.
On this day, we celebrate the victory they won, and we recommit
ourselves to the great truth that they defended, that freedom is the
birthright of all mankind. Because of their sacrifice and the help of
brave allies, that truth prevailed at the close of the 20th century.
As the 21st century unfolds before us, Americans and Europeans are
continuing to work together and are bringing freedom and hope to places
where it has long been denied: in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Lebanon, and
across the broader Middle East. Freedom is a permanent hope of mankind;
and when that hope is made real for all people, it will be because of
the sacrifices of a new generation of men and women as selfless and
dedicated to liberty as those we honor today.
May God bless you all. (Applause.)