For Immediate Release
May 31, 2004

Global Message
Memorial Day 2004

From remarks by President Bush in his Radio Address, 5/29/04

The United States is dedicating the World War Two Memorial in our nation's capital before thousands of veterans of that conflict. The memorial will stand forever as a tribute to the generation that fought that war -- and to the more than 400,000 Americans who gave their lives.

Because of those soldiers' sacrifices, tyrants fell, fascism and Nazism were vanquished, and freedom prevailed.

Today, freedom faces new enemies. Since America was attacked on September 11, 2001, we have seen the decency and brave spirit of those in uniform while in places like Kabul and Kandahar, Mosul and Baghdad. Because of their fierce courage, America is safer, two terror regimes are gone forever and more than 50 million souls now live in freedom.

We have a strategy to defeat our terrorist enemy and a plan to help establish lasting freedom in Iraq.

The stakes are in Iraq are both high and clear. The enemy seeks to establish a new haven for terror and violence at the heart of the Middle East.

The enemy seeks to force free nations to retreat into isolation and fear. However, we will hold this hard-won ground for the realm of liberty.

Those who have fought the battles of the war on terror and served the cause of freedom can be proud of all that they have achieved.

Throughout America's history, we have gone to war reluctantly because we have known the costs of war. In every generation, the best among us are called to pay that price. Those who have paid those costs have given us every moment we live in freedom and we are in their debt.