Margraten, Netherlands – Surrounded by white crosses marking the graves of U.S. soldiers, President Bush on Sunday remembered World War II veterans who “did not live to comb gray hair” like the aging U.S. and Dutch veterans who listened to his speech.
“Freedom is a permanent hope of mankind,” Bush said in a visit to the only U.S. military cemetery in the Netherlands. “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.”
Bush marked the 60th anniversary of the May 1945 signing of the Berlin armistice that ended the war in Europe at the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial. It is Europe’s third-largest cemetery for America’s war dead, with 8,300 graves.
“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,” Bush said in brief, 13-minute remarks delivered on a wet, gray morning.
Bush said the allied soldiers who defeated the Nazis proved that “there is no power like the power of freedom, and no soldier as strong as a soldier who fights for that freedom.”
“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,” Bush said. “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.”
In socially liberal Holland, Bush’s use of military might in an effort to spread democracy is widely unpopular. But in the region around the cemetery, within walking distance of the German and Belgian borders, Americans are fondly remembered for their wartime rescue. In memory of the casualties incurred by U.S. forces as they set off from near here in the deadly, but successful, campaign toward Berlin, many local Dutch still bring flowers.
