Tribute to Sacrifice and Victory: The National D-Day Memorial

Production funding for tribute to sacrifice and victory the National D-Day Memorial was provided in part by the Burren Carter Foundation. And by architectural concrete products a manufacturer of pre-cast concrete custom shaped and sized to fit any application I got to write power. I like what it's like Prague airport. We got a big on army this morning on the northern coast of France. That's the only word we have at this time. There is no indication yet of exactly where the invasion took place that were. June 6th 1944. D-Day. Was the turning point in World War II. A decisive battle. Still the beginning of the end for Hitler's dream of nazi domination of the world. The Normandy invasion codenamed Overlord was the largest air land and sea invasion ever

undertaken. In 1944. Bedford Virginia had a population of only thirty two hundred. It was the home location for company A or the 106th Infantry Regiment of the twenty ninth division. One of the two first assault regiments to hit Omaha beach scene of the bloodiest fighting on the day of the 170 soldier company 91 men died. Sixty three were wounded and only 15 were able to continue fighting. Of the 35 Bedford soldiers 41 died. The highest per capita loss from any single community in the United States. Now over fifty six years later. Bedford will be the home of the National D-Day Memorial being billed as a symbol to the valor fidelity and sacrifice of the allied armed forces who gave their all on D-Day that future generations might live in freedom. We didn't learn about their invasion till the briefing.

On that morning about 2:30 in the morning. We had heard rumors they were going to be an invasion but not until that morning did we know about it and everybody in the room lettered a big cheer and there was just a job we had today. I was a ball turret gun on a B-17 Flying Fortress. We bombed early in the morning right off shore trying to get the. Obstacles that were to keep the landing craft from coming in. That was our first target went back to the base. Reloaded refreshed. And went back again. The second time we dropped bombs about a half mile inland. From the ball turret coast about tared is underneath the bottom of the plane. And I had an 18 inch round glass between my feet and this turret would rotate in any direction I wanted. So I was able to observe any and everything that

went on beneath the bottom of the plane. D-day morning I could see the ships and everything on the English Channel. I saw the naval ships blasting the coastal defenses as we reached Normandy. I looked back and there we were sort of in the lead up there an air force going in to do the bombing. When I looked back the sky was darkened by bombers. There were hundreds and hundreds of bombers. Coming in to do the same thing we were doing. That was the flak that the Germans threw up that Akram shell. There were the German fighters that attacked us. There were the planes that we lost that were shot down the friends. But it is Leonard Little metal was one of 225 especially chosen Rangers in the second Ranger Battalion. Their objective to take up German communications and take out the coastal guns atop the cliffs that point to Haack. It took

three days to complete the whole mission. But despite the odds the guns were destroyed by 8:30 a.m. on D-day morning. This was a truism of giant cliffs at the end of the English Channel that were on the high visualize a 10 story building and the Germans up on top of it and we've got to climb up the face of it and take it away from the Germans and then destroy the. Six. Large coastal guns 155 millimeter guns that were believed to be there that in fact once had been there but they weren't there when we got up there and did all that. And we had to find them in an alternate position a mile away inland well and make a long story short. After a lot of battling and we found the gun and destroyed them we cut all communications the Germans from Utah Beach to Omaha

Beach. The battle was over three days later only 90 men were left standing. Anyone had been killed. The rest were casualties. Maybe those 90 were well enough to continue. Momentum went back to the beach three days later to be evacuated for medical treatment. I only went back because I insisted that I see the doctor. But the shocking thing I'll. Tell you about that. I've never been so shocked. In my life and I've seen a lot of combat. But that day I had never seen my buddies dead. And as I went back to the point I had to walk out the. Entrance road to it. And there are many of my company buddies we had the highest casualty rate my company had three companies the ENM and part of headquarters. And there were my guys laid out just a couple of days before we were with all our training time shared so much together

and there was a first time I saw the dead body of Rangers and they had blood and mud and dust and dirt in their beers on their faces and that shook me pretty bad. And I've never gotten rid of that site because they were all my closest friends. Thing about ranges are they have a very strong bonding and to this day we're closest friends George. Jimmy Green was the sailor from England who was charged with delivering the troops in a company from Bedford Virginia on to the shores of Normandy. When I was in the wrong Navy at that time a twenty two year old left tenant and I had the job of taking in the first wave in Omaha Beach. They had to succeed. And we had to get in there on time. I landed them at 6:30 at the right place which I was supposed to do. That my job was nothing compared with what the troops had ahead of them. We got them there. They had to do the job it was quite a day really

it was a very rough sea. I had experienced troops in a very rough scene. They were some of them were seasick and apprehensive obviously of what lay ahead of them. We were supposed to be preceded by tanks. But the ships carrying the tanks you know cities couldn't make speed that we made and we overtook them. And in fact landed ahead of them. So we were the first ship's landing craft to go in at Omaha 6:18. I took in the company commander Captain stated and as he was a company and every man in my boat was killed a few minutes after they got to the beach. We landed them as close to the beach as we could. It was a very rough and a very flat beach and they had about 30 yards to wade through the surf before they actually reached the

shore line. When they got to the shore line they had a terrific expanse of sand to cross. And the Germans were waiting for them. They were in the cliffs with machine guns mortars and anti-tank guns. And they melted them down as they went to secure the exit to the beach. So I think most of them died within minutes of us putting much you. We did lose one craft off the beach. It sank about. A kilometer off shore. So after we landed a company we went back and rescued those troops in the water. And I've seen one of those survivors today met up with him after all these years. Lucky them. I don't it's I'm damned if I had to get stuck there I wouldn't be here today because the odds are very much against us. That's a man called Roy Stephens who lives in. And we had a long talk about how he went down and how he was rescued and it was

very great to meet up with him. Walter Ellery's is a staff sergeant in the 18th Infantry Regiment of the first division landed on the beach a hit of a second wave when he got close to the beach. He hit a sandbar when the ramp went down. We ran out the front of the boat. And we were in water over our heads some of the kids kids not mine because I was rather tall and. That we got to in till we get far enough along to get the feet on the sand head above water and thinking keep walking on the person you want to do is hit the beach and lay down. But I told him when we had to keep on going in there was the beach master there and I told him I said we which is the best way to go in there and he said we'll follow this path because it's already been made by guys who cleared the mines by stepping on them and that was it. You know and so we had moved what we had to do and to go up that path to where we went up the path that we got right up below the line

and the path was made by guys who had been blown up and then died right in the path and things like that. We got up there and the last row of wire had been blown so there was two Bangalore two men who were pinned down and so we said we'd fire up into the trenches and we did. And he says the one guy who got hit the other guy got the torpedo in there and he blew that awareness is it breached the wire where the intermission was going on up into the his ribs. And from that we captured four Germans sent him back down the hill and then we we went on in. That's what I did on D-Day. And I got off. I don't know how we did it but all of my squad and I got off the beach without getting a casualty. And the first wave had 50 percent in the second wave when my brother came in and 30 percent. And my brother got killed on D-Day and he was in the second week.

He was in a different company separated us in England because of the Soldan rather an incident in the Pacific. And so they transferred me to company. He stayed in the same company. So when he got killed in an adventure and the other men on the ship killed they were old friends of mine because actually I was in charge of them before I got transferred. 19 year old John Roberts slaughter of Roanoke a sergeant and a heavy weapons machine gun squad leader on D-Day landed with Company D 116 the Infantry Regiment of the twenty 29 division. The weather was so bad in the fog and mist and the smoke from the guns from the battleships firing that it was very difficult to see. And we we lost our way got separated. We were also trying to avoid some of the obstacles that were set up out there in the Jandal. So we got separated and everybody landed wrong. We landed about 200 yards to the

east of where we were supposed to. Thank goodness we landed where we were supposed to. I guess we had gotten the same treatment a company. Received. Main thing I did. I just want to get our objective was to get on top of that hill as quickly as possible and get out there and dig in and get ready for the big counterattack that we were expecting. And so and at that particular time of the day. The beach was about three hundred and fifty yards wide from the edge of the water to the base of the cliffs. So we had a large sprint to get across that thing with all that equipment. And we had Runnels that we had to run through. And it was it was quite a feat to get across to be you know even if nobody was shooting at us we were under fire all the way across. I was just running the gauntlet. And some of her some of our men got hit and. I was

when I got to the seawall which was about two thirds of the way across. Thank goodness I was out of breath and know I was carrying all that equipment plus I was scared to death. And and when I got in my rifle had accidentally discharged while I was running across the beach. And when I had to stop and clean it because it was full of sand after it started to clog up. So I was soon as I got to the seawall and took my pack off my back and spread my raincoat and then I found out that I'd been shot at because there are bullet holes all in there in my Rinka. So that charged my battery a little bit later in the day slaughter returned to the beach to retrieve more equipment. When I first went down the hill and saw the debris all over the beach it was just a disaster area. All I can say.

And then you could just see the dead bodies lying around some of the wounded some were dead and some were dying. But the worst thing I guess was the dead soldiers that were washing in and rolling in the sand and the surf. And with their shirt stained red. And that was our some of our guys and it was it was heartbreaking and it was also scary because it just looked like it were going to lose we were going to lose the battle. As a teenager in the 1940s Lucille holdback bogus was part of a close knit family in Bedford. She lost two brothers in the day we received the first telegram on Sunday as we were dressing for church. We live right across the road from the centerpoint Methodist Church. And my father was treasurer there and I taught Sunday school. And

so we were always active in the church it was sort of the social gathering of the neighborhood. And when we didn't show up on Sunday they sent someone over to our house to see where we were and they found out that my brother had been killed in action. And then on Monday my sister and I decided we'd try and make some homemade ice cream to make parents feel better. And as we were making ice cream the second telegram was delivered saying that my younger brother Raymond was missing in action. So by then. The family was devastated. And I don't remember much more that day. I think I blocked it from memory. It was so painful. And. I know my mom cried for days and dad would go to the barn shed tears to keep the child from seeing him cry and. It about killed my parents I think Bedford was killed on D-Day. Right

within the first few minutes he was hit directly by a shell and several The man saw him been killed. Reimann was not so severely wounded as I've heard from the other man and he was put near the shore to be transported to England to the hospital. And while he was waiting along with many of the other men the tide came in and washed him into the channel. So they were never found. And just a few weeks after we receive the telegram my parents received an e-mail. Package from a soldier in West Virginia and he just happened to be walking along the beach the day plus one when he saw this Bob a line in the sand and he said most anyone would have done. He picked it up from the sands to keep it from being destroyed. And. My mother always prized the Bible because that was their own possession of Raymond chivalrously. And so it

was a family artifact that we all wanted to hold onto. So. I have it now and I plan to give it to the museum. Going to be a part of our memorial. Our goal is to pay tribute to the D-Day veterans of June 6 1944 that participated in the landing of the beaches of Normandy France. It is that simple. For many of the D-Day veterans that are involved in this project in creating and it is their way of paying tribute to their fellow soldiers that did not return home. These men felt they were lucky to get across the beach. When did or not come home. They know that many of their fellows did not. And they want to remember them. They don't want them to be forgotten and this creation of this national memorial will

ensure that they're never forgotten. In the mid 1980s D-Day veteran bomb slaughter it was working for a Roanoke newspaper. He talked with some of his co-workers about his experience in Normandy. France. I think you know. I wrote a column about this. And so he started researching the column and he called me you know here at home one day and he said what would you think about. A monument to D-Day. Of course I think he was thinking as I was thinking that just some you know statue of GI down there center in the square maybe over the plaza. And so sure I think it's great. And so. The column came out and a lot of people said well why not a committee was formed to raise money and educate the public about the day. It was a slow process.

The project finally got a boost in 1994 after a lot of sweat and in meetings and so forth we were just about ready to disband when the 50th anniversary of D-Day came. And some of us went overseas and got on television and newspaper stories and the bug hit us. And everybody was called. To me further interest in D-Day was created by the release of Steven Spielberg's motion picture Saving Private Ryan. He started to work and then things begin to flag a bit. Here comes the Saving Private Ryan and it got their body stirred up again. So I think now that there's no there's nothing the world's going to stop us now and it's going to be a magnificent memorial. And I think that everybody that has seen it and seen the site will

testify that it's one of the grandest memorials in the United States the site in the city of Bedford is on the tallest hill in the city of Bedford. It's an 88 acre site which we acquired in 96 and early 97. Of those 88 acres 11 of them were provided by the city of Bedford and the remaining 77 we purchased from willing landowners in the area. The 88 acres we're not going to develop the full 88 acres but it provides us some buffer area buffering the developed part of the memorial complex from the surrounding neighborhoods and also buffering the surrounding neighborhoods from the memorial complex it works very well and both ways by being on the tallest hill and actually constructing the monument on the top of the tallest hill. It allows an uninterrupted view shared of the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountney mountains it's absolutely stunning the view of

the peaks of fodder as an example along the Blue Ridge Parkway from our site is phenomenal. After the selection of the site we began to do some layouts for how the project could be developed. And from that there was a pre grading contract which preceded the construction that you see up there the pre grading contract was the the job that moves the majority of the earth in Iraq. That was done. It built the access road which is now used for construction. It built a. We use the excess material to build part of the athletic field that's now down in front of the Bedford elementary school and basically prepared the site for the actual bricks and granite and mortar that that came along and what the public sees.

Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz just played an instrumental role in the building of a memorial. Schultz whose nickname was sparky helped raise over four point seven million dollars nationwide. Although he passed away in February 2000 his dedication and hard work will long be remembered. Charles Schulz was a marvelous man to meet and to get to know. Charles Schulz many many years ago when his children one of his children was in college. The college professor asked the class what they felt the most important day in the 20th century was. While. Charles son called him at home and said Dad what do you think the most important day of the 20th century was and why. Without hesitation sparkie answered the question to is that D-Day was clearly the most important day in modern history. Charles believed that if you knew Charles Schulz you knew he had certain beliefs and they were just realities of life to him and he was committed to those

beliefs and his belief in. D-Day being the most significant day of the 20th century went to his core. Pay tribute to this in his peanuts column and he typically did it on the anniversary date of the day whenever his column appeared on June 6 of each year we called him and we went out to visit him and approached him about being in our national campaign chairman. He accepted right away with with very little reservation. And on October 16th of 1997 he announced publicly being our national campaign chairman and at that point he announced his initial gift of one million dollars. And I point that out at this point because that allowed this endeavor to go under construction right away which we did on November 11th about three weeks later the same year on this Veterans Day we were under construction at the site itself. These are the words that Sparky used at the kickoff of the campaign.

I think that any sensible person with any grasp of history at all would have to admit that today was the most important day of our century. Without the day it's possible that Europe. Could have remained for another 25 or 50 years in darkness. I'm glad I was not there and yet I wish I had been. I wish I could have been one of the men who had done what all those people did and survived it. My admiration for the people who did it knows no bounds. I had a brief conversation once with a very famous scientist who said that there were two things two critical elements that helped us to win the war. One was the breaking of the code. The other was Winston Churchill. I said I agree with you and all that but I think there was a third element and that was the G.I.. The common soldier a common person who was willing in spite of not wanting to

do it to accept the orders that were given him and to be sent in all directions all over the world to do something which in many cases he didn't even understand it was the common soldier I repeated Who was the third important element. He just looked at me as if I was out of my mind. I still think I was right. Going back to the importance of the day itself it is so easy for us to eat us as each generation comes and goes. To forget what other generations did it is still disconcerting to talk to younger people and find that they have almost no knowledge of what was done. I think that there are certain things in our history that must never be forgotten. Perhaps sometimes we do have too many monuments too many holidays and things of this kind. But D-Day is not one of them. No it is one of the days we must not forget. I am pleased that I

can do a small part in seeing that it is not forgotten. Architect Byron Dixon who has an avid interest in history has been involved with the project since the late 1980s. A project like this is primarily site driven in terms of its scope. The project has always had as its fundamental element of a commemorative and ever since we began this we agree that there were three things we wanted to achieve. One was we wanted to commemorate the sacrifice made by the allied forces on June 6 1944 in northern France. We wanted also to educate. This was if this monument was going to endure for for great length of time which we all wanted it to do that it would have to continue to educate new generations. So education was a very important part. And last but not least we felt it needed to be entertaining. Not in the sense that it was a theme park

with rides. And as such we felt that it had to excite people. They they they had to enjoy it. And of course in the process we wanted to appeal to a broad range of people. Youngsters and who are finding their introduction to history fascinating particularly this period in history. And then the older generation many of whom actually were at this point in time did were there that fight in the conflict or either or either or on the beach during the window of the invasion or they were in Northern Europe or they were in the Pacific or wherever the site will contain first an education center that has better than 40000 square feet within that facility at this time. And better than 100 parking spaces associated with that and then further up on the Hill. In fact on top of the hill will be a a circular lane designed monument that is 700 feet in

diameter of the circle. That means there is eight point eight acres inside the monument area. The monument is its icon feature will be a 44 foot six inch arch to D Day. And that was purposefully done so that the arch is 44 feet six inches tall to depict June 6 1944. The top of the hill was definitely the highest point on the site was definitely meant for the major commemorative the arch the oval or the arch and the arch you evolve through a process that caused us to look at three things. One was the event two was the venue of the event and three was the general time frame in which the event took place. Well first of all to start with the timeframe being in the in the mid 40s the architectural style that was very popular at that time was our deck. So we

we did employ certain details and motifs that were consistent with the Art Deco period. The major form is a derivative of the arch concept of honoring triumph and armies. The Romans carry this I guess to his her point. And I looked closely at several of the Roman arches in the Arch of Titus in particular. Was what I guess if you were to say the roots of the of the overlord arch goes back to the Titans. But anyway no doubt Western civilization has given has given a great deal of respect to that this architectural form. And so we felt it would be appropriate because we were where the Bible took place in Europe and we were dealing primarily with the Occidental cultures so we decided that the arts would be an appropriate motif and the arch

was of course appropriate in that it framed the Blue Ridge Mountains and the peaks of water in particular which gave us a terrific opportunity to focus on a natural feature that that is so readily identifiable with breadfruit and with the area here. The arch has a solid supporting structure of reinforced concrete which all had to be poured in place first. There are about. 400 cubic yards of concrete supporting the granite with an arch. So we had to pour that and to support that much weight we had to develop a foundation for the arch that went all the way to the bedrock below. So there's about 16 feet of arch that you do not see which is supporting the substructure below the floor elevation within the plaza then the granite arch itself is forty four feet six inches tall.

Faced with granite which weighs thousands and thousands of pounds the granite for the arch and surrounding Plaza was ordered in 1997 and 1998 from Cold Spring granite company in Minnesota. Six colors of granite were to be used. Black white green mauve and two different shades of gray. So almost to be polished and some unpolished cool spring granite company is known internationally for its work and has provided granite for such monuments as the Korean War Memorial and the FDR memorial. Now granite. Has to be quarried. And it is heavy. And it is expensive to Quadri. So you have to pay for the granite upfront in order to get it quite right. It's pretty interesting process just to acquire the granite which I've learned about in the process of this project. But if if people can envision a loaf of bread which is an example I've used quite often this loaf of bread if it

were granite has to literally be. Blown out of the side of a granite Hill. Once the loaf of bread is created you don't have to slice the loaf of bread to get the granite pieces that you want out of the love well whereas a hole in your middle of your loaf of bread might be great for your peanut butter or jam sandwich. It's not great in the granite business. You can't have a hole in the middle of a piece of granite that you're going to use to face the arch with or to but on the plaza floor. Granite quarrying has 60 to 70 percent waste material. That's why it is so expensive to do it's also expensive because just the equipment to handle the weight of the granite is pretty large and pretty expensive too. To have. So we have been quarrying the granite for this arch and we've are paying 962 thousand dollars

for the granite that covers the arch and the surrounding Plaza. That's a lot of granite and something we had to take care of a couple of years in advance. Just as you have to order sculpture pieces and bronze ahead of time because it takes the artist a period of time to design it and to put it together and to go through the furnishing process to create the sculpture in just the right way. The granite is really a sculptural piece itself. We selected the cathedral to top out the arch. And in doing so we selected alternating black and white granite monolith and there they were selected to correspond with the markings as you see of the aircraft of the day. All the aircraft are marked in the black and white. And that was probably the single identifying feature of the battle that we were able to recover except for of

course overlord the name that Eisenhower had given the overall invasion of northern Europe. And so that's how it came about. Also we took the ad might be worthy to mention that we took the alternating black and white granite stones and alter them in height then also sort of picked up the configuration of a typical small rural French town. I was impressed when I was over there in northern Europe at Normandy to see the site we visited several small towns around Omaha Beach area and the little houses along the main street as they went up and down the hills were so pronounced and the alternating Gable's like Gable's alternate. And so we felt that they sort of picked up the French towns we liked that effect. It was very noticeable and I didn't set out really to do that but we noticed that as we articulated the concept that begin to develop and we liked that because there is a

terrific ties you know with Northern Europe the top element which is a triangular piece of granite on the on the cathedral area of the arts weighs thirty seven thousand pounds by itself. So the weight of the total arch eludes me at this point. But it's rather significant. And we had to complete the pouring of the concrete of the arch the placing of the granite on the arch all while we could get cranes adjacent or right next to the arch. Once it was fully completed we could then pull the cranes out of what was going to be the surrounding plaza area and begin to pour the concrete and place the granite on the plaza to create it. But we had to completely do the arch first. The plaza is about an acre in size around the arch itself. We wanted to create an open space around the foot of the arch so that people could linger around the arch. We also placed

the final tribute which is a piece of sculpture beyond the arch. So that to get to it. You would have to walk through the arch legs to get to it. That's what we want. The visiting public to do and certainly D-Day veterans to do as they come to the site to cross through under the arch on the outer ring of the plaza. We decided to place. The flags related to the Allied nations that participated in D-Day. The flags represent the United States Australia Canada. The Czech Republic. France Greece the Netherlands New Zealand Norway Poland Slovakia and the United Kingdom. Just as many countries contributed to the Allied victory. Many people organizations and localities have helped to make the national D-Day Memorial a reality and continue to contribute time energy and resources. This is the Bell Atlantic piny Lynchburg canceled and the ground got cancelled.

Planning to get in 14:3 is the with the due date Project. It's because. It's long overdue and it's something that we have a lot of friends or relatives and Bedford County had a lot of people were sent to battle that day. We wanted to do something show that we still remember them and we wanted to continue remember them. As the project proceeds down the hill. The middle Plaza which is under construction at this time is designed to give the impression looking back up the heel of the German observation and fortification bunkers that dotted the Atlantic wall. We liked the the architecture of war in terms of its composition its very formidable. It has its intriguing construction on the bunker like

wall has been underway all the arch was being built. The wall will eventually serve as the backdrop for sculpture and the beach scene which is planned for completion in 2001. The beach scene and the 16 foot wall that was in front of the beach scene. We wanted to create the illusion or a replica even though and I'm very miniaturized form of the invasion in France and we have contracted for ten pieces of bronze sculpture which will we'll use two to make up the invasion scene replicating D-Day in some fashion. We're not trying to replicate it in its exact ness. We're simply trying to create a visual image of D-Day for visitors to the site itself. And we thought a few pieces of sculpture done voile and located in the right places within a beach area would be able to do that. So the beach

scene than the reflecting pond area. Noting the channel Higgins boat type of depiction at the other end of things and then our surrounding Plaza for people to to linger in and to view this sculptural in the story wall from. So we wanted to create in the middle of a plaza area it'll be surrounded by wonderful gardens and plantings and just green open spaces. I think it will be a place to linger and to hang out and to enjoy. We were fortunate early in the project to hook up with Leopold gallery of Kansas City. Paul Dorrell being the directing consultant on sculpture and he assembled a talented group of artist Jim Brothers who who who created the piece that's in the entry plan right now. And the piece in front of the planner that will

eventually go down on the beach head the diorama Jim is a very talented very interesting individual. And we really enjoyed working with him. Been a real pleasure. He's a true professional. He doesn't take any compromises in his work and I mean he he's been known just to take an element hand or a head or a leg. He doesn't like he just pulls it off and starts again. And he he just he's tireless and just keeps going to get it right and I really like it and you can see it in his work. You can really see it in his work and all of the of the pieces the equipment the Vass the flotation devices the canteen all of the equipment that the soldiers where he has actually resource that has for his own personal use in configuring the actual device he has researched and located the real period pieces.

He has and he had one of the few flak jackets that remain He's really takes it seriously. Jim Brothers sculpture def onshore was unveiled and Memorial Day 2000 some elements in the sculpture were inspired by the loss of the to hold back brothers in the day the Bible on the sculpture is reminiscent of a Bible found on the beach after the battle which was returned to the morning whole back family other sculptures are being created by Matt Kirby such as the final tribute which is located on the plaza near the arch. Construction on the project stopped briefly on Memorial Day May 29 2000. With the victory Arjun Plaza were dedicated before a crowd of over 4000. Despite inclement weather five veterans shared their memories of D-Day representing the air sea and land aspects of the invasion. A flag rescued from the beaches of Normandy was returned to its home shores and presented proudly to be a part of the national day of memorial.

It was like. Whoa. Whoa whoa. Whoa whoa whoa. Whoa. Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. Whoa. Whoa whoa whoa

whoa whoa. Whoa. Whoa whoa. Whoa whoa whoa whoa. We. Are having a battle. They made sacrifices. That we can never. Just. Remind everyone. That

these very. Same day. Is the way you are. I have no. Cause. For which they die. All of you are here. Right right. All right. Well there are. A thousand. Years later or later.

The building. A man. We. Would not have been. Sure that. You hear the Gulf War II generation after generation. My day is all. Or. Even. Less flat. Wrong. Your death on shore was unveiled by Lieutenant Governor John Hager and

members of the whole back family. All that. You guys. Are they just. Didn't bother. Me. Yes.

When the crowds of the weather cleared. Construction was under way again in the race against time. The desire was to have the entire project ready for June 6 of 2004. Including the education center. That's a very ambitious goal. And. We don't have the time and the luxury to drag this thing out. The desire is to get it open so that these men can see it. In addition to ongoing construction of a beach scene in middle Plaza work is underway. A 40000 square foot education center. The public will enter into an atrium which will have a glass

ceiling light. From there they can visit the exhibit area of the Arnold M. Spielberg theater. Made possible by gift from his son. Filmmaker Steven Spielberg. Plans for the top floor include four galleries one for traveling exhibits. The and cartoon art gallery a gallery to the medics and a gallery of Champions of a war. Sometimes. Heard. This endeavor referred to as the Bedford memorial. It's not the Bedford memorial it's the National D-Day Memorial located in Bedford Virginia. I believe that there were many people in the surrounding region and in the Commonwealth of Virginia that did not think this national memorial would ever happen. Granted it is long overdue. Long long overdue this national memorial is a reality. We just have to get it completed and get it open. And I'm looking forward to that and letting people come here and pay their own

individual tributes and they have their own individual remembrances. Of if not to D-Day June 6 1944 to whatever. Significant events there are in their individual lives. I believe that we'll be providing a place of remembrance for all those that come here. And I believe when they come that they want to come back. So. I think we're doing the job well while we're doing it right. I'm proud of what we've done and I'll be very proud for the nation and the international audience to see it. We're building the equivalent of the statue of the regime and the other national monuments here. And how many people ever get to do that. But more importantly as we've gotten to know these veterans it's it's become a very personal project. It's a duty that we have to these men and they're a very special

group of people. No none of them will ever take credit for doing anything. They always you ask them and they say well I didn't do anything but so and so was a hero. He didn't come back. So you get to know these people and it becomes very much of a personal project that you feel like you owe them for what they went through. And it's probably the most rewarding thing that we've ever done to to be able to deal with these people and to see their faces when they see it on the way and have these programs for. I think it's a marvelous thing that they're doing. BRIDGET. Thank you. Bill Morial long time coming.

I love you guys. Don't get we'll ever get to see it. Because even though they came back with dying off with a thousand a day now our countdown is on. It's very exciting to all D-Day veterans and I'm sure you all veterans too. And hopefully the entire state of Virginia would be proud of who you are. It means a lot to all the families particularly at end and saw a long time coming but it really honors those men who made the supreme sacrifice as well as those who served. Oh I'm really proud. Really really happy that it's here in Bedford and this will help remind all our kids and children and those who come after us. That freedom is not free. Is what you're doing here is not only a salute to all those who died but it's a remembrance of all the contributions they made. What that's meant to

our country since World War Two. Production funding for tribute to sacrifice and victory. The National D-Day Memorial

was provided in part by the burn Carter Foundation. And by architectural concrete products a manufacturer of precast concrete custom shaped and sized to fit any application. For