Post-Presidential Speeches
Post-Presidential Speeches • Fort Pitt Chapter, Association of the United States Army, May 31, 1961 General Hay, Members of the Fort Pitt Chapter, Association of the United States Army: On June 6, 1944, the United States undertook, on the beaches of Normandy, one of its greatest military adventures on its long history. Twenty-seven years before, another American Army had landed in France with the historic declaration, “Lafayette, we are here.” But on D-Day, unlike the situation in 1917, the armed forces of the United States came not to reinforce an existing Western front, but to establish one. D-Day was a team effort. No service, no single Allied nation could have done the job alone. But it was in the nature of things that the Army should establish the beachhead, from which the over-running of the enemy in Europe would begin. Success, and all that it meant to the rights of free people, depended on the men who advanced across the ground, and by their later advances, rolled back the might of Nazi tyranny. That Army of Liberation was made up of Americans and Britons and Frenchmen, of Hollanders, Belgians, Poles, Norwegians, Danes and Luxembourgers. The American Army, in turn, was composed of Regulars, National Guardsmen, Reservists and Selectees, all of them reflecting the vast panorama of American life. This Army was sustained in the field by the unparalleled industrial genius and might of a free economy, organized by men such as yourselves, joined together voluntarily for the common defense. Beyond the victory achieved by this combined effort lies the equally dramatic fact of achieving Western security by cooperative effort.
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