D Day Memorial Quotes & Sayings

Despite how utterly massive they might be, it is never the size of the arsenal nor the strength of the warrior. Rather, it is a heart bent on sacrifice that is the most potent weapon of all. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

08/14/1025h. Dessert Competitions.
08/14/1315h. Illinois State Fair Infirmary; then motel; then Springfield Memorial Medical Center Emergency Room for distention and possible rupture of transverse colon (false alarm); then motel; incapacitated till well after sunset; whole day a washout; incredibly embarrassing, unprofessional; indescribable. Delete entire day. — David Foster Wallace

On this day, take time to remember those who have fallen. But on every day after, do more; put the freedoms they died for to greater and nobler uses. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Memorial Day, the reason for it, fewer and fewer people know. It's just the first real weekend of summer, three-day weekend and so forth, barbecues, what have you. That's why I think education is important. I'm really glad my dad drilled into me these things that he had lived through and it helped me relate to him better and understand the things he thought were important and why he was raising me the way he was. — Rush Limbaugh

We'd like to think that it is not our fault that great men and women died fighting for the security of our nation and safety of our communities. But we know this not to be true. They commited their lives for us in instances where either we were too afraid to do it ourselves or failed to find alternate solutions on our own. We enjoy the fruits of their ultimate sacrifice and owe their families a heartfelt thanks and apology everyday. — D'Andre Lampkin

My name is Natasha Trethewey, and I was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, in 1966, exactly 100 years to the day that Mississippi celebrated the first Confederate Memorial Day, April 26, 1866. — Natasha Trethewey

If I have become so pathetically dulled that I hold freedom as my right and the privileges of liberty as my due, I can stand beside the stilled graves of a thousand soldiers fallen in defense of freedom and not feel a thing. And my most solemn prayer is that I will never be this. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Memorial Day will be celebrated ... by the usual betrayal of the dead, by the hypocritical patriotism of the politicians and contractors preparing for more wars, more graves to receive more flowers on future Memorial Days. The memory of the dead deserves a different dedication. To peace, to defiance of governments. — Howard Zinn

These fallen heroes represent the character of a nation who has a long history of patriotism and honor - and a nation who has fought many battles to keep our country free from threats of terror. — Michael N. Castle

Legend has it that Walter was taking a walk with his father one day and passed by a church where Oswald directed his young son's attention to a memorial. "There's a name you will never remember," Oswald commented as he kept walking. Walter paused to read: — Patricia Cornwell

President Bush paid homage Wednesday to World War II veterans of Normandy at the D-Day Memorial. Later that night, his twin daughters paid a special tribute to World War II veterans of the Pacific. They each downed two kamikazes. — Argus Hamilton

Better than honor and glory, and History's iron pen, Was the thought of duty done and the love of his fellow-men. — Richard Watson Gilder

Happy Memorial Day! Thank you to all our service men and women past and present. You are not forgotten! — Courteney Cox

On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes
and I see many of them in the audience here today
our sense of patriotism is particularly strong. — Barack Obama

If Americans can transform Memorial Day, technically a remembrance of all our war dead ever, into the official kickoff of summer, we can handle adapting one demoralizing battle into a wholesome, chipper get-together. — Sarah Vowell

We sit at our consoles and play "Gears of War", but we don't see images from war. We don't turn on the news and see the evidence of war, the result of war. Maybe twice a year, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, we'll go out, we'll hang our flags, we'll try to inculcate in our children some sense of national honor for the fallen. But really, we don't see it. We just don't see the pictures. There's no drive-by on the freeway of death up close. So we don't really see bravery. — Jamie Lee Curtis

We owe this freedom of choice and action to those men and women in uniform who have served this nation and its interests in time of need. In particular, we are forever indebted to those who have given their lives that we might be free. — Ronald Reagan

So three days before the millennium, Bianca called. "D'ya wanna go to the White House with Trisha and me?" By Trisha, she meant country singer Trisha Yearwood, whose record label, MCA, she'd recently been hired to work at. "When would that be, exactly?" I asked. "For that Millennium Concert at the Lincoln Memorial. There's a party at the White House after and all." She always talked like she was chewing gum between words. "They're flying us there in a private jet. Ya don't need to write about it. Just come as Trisha's guest. It'll be fun." "Shit, I'm supposed to go ice-skating with some guys who think the world's going to end. Give me a day to figure things out and I'll get right back to you. — Neil Strauss

The events of that day would forever be remembered, and they stood together as a united Marridon, a nation that would lead in innovation and liberality, taking up the thread that had been left for them, the essence of selfless love woven along a national loom. — Michelle Franklin

Green sods are all their monument; and yet it tells A nobler history than pillared piles, Or the eternal pyramids. — James Gates Percival

Ask not what I can do for you. Ask what you can do for me — Jerry Seinfeld

However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind. — Douglas MacArthur

Canada is lacking two things. It's true. Don't make me say it again. The first is Olympic Heroes [ ... ] The second thing that Canada is lacking is Memorial Day, which is today by the way, where we in the States celebrate our war heroes by having barbeques . And I realize here in Canada you can't have barbeques because you'd probably be attacked by a moose, or caribou, or even a grizzly. — Kurt Angle

You are silent now who once stood on battlefields ravaged by destruction unimaginable, holding in those desperate places the line of freedom for others you would never know, and who would never know you. And being one of those you never knew, I would give all I have to clasp your hand one single time, look into eyes that witnessed the bloodied carnage that results when freedom refuses to bow to chains of any kind, and simply say 'thank you. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

But fame is theirs - and future days
On pillar'd brass shall tell their praise;
Shall tell - when cold neglect is dead -
"These for their country fought and bled." — Philip Freneau

While we tediously check our weaponry before entering into battle, do we check our hearts? For without exception, that is the greatest weapon of all. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

It is my wish and most cherished hope that God would be pleased with my legacy, that lives would be changed by it, and that the world would be immeasurably better because I was privileged to leave a legacy at all. And if perchance I am fortunate enough to have these things come to pass, I can then rest in the fact that I have lived well. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies. — Moina Michael

The heroes of Flight 93 won the first battle in the War on Terror, and they should never be forgotten. — Jim Ramstad

These martyrs of patriotism gave their lives for an idea. — Schuyler Colfax

What I can do for my country, I am willing to do. — Christopher Gadsden

This was the first Memorial Day [Monday, May 1st, 1865]. African Americans invented Memorial Day in Charleston, South Carolina. What you have there is Black Americans recently freed from slavery announcing to the world with their flowers, their feet, and their songs what the war had been about. What they basically were creating was the Independence Day of a Second American Revolution. — David W. Blight

In our observances this Memorial Day, we honor the brave Americans who paid the highest price for their commitment to the ideals of peace, freedom, and justice. Our debt to them can be paid only by our own recommitment to preserving those same ideals. — Ronald Reagan

It is important that we remember.
It is vital we do more than just remember. — Richelle E. Goodrich

We should not take a Memorial Day recess until we pass a proper memorial for the slain students in Littleton, Colorado, and other school gun tragedies. — John Conyers

The architects of this wickedness will find no safe harbor in this world. We will chase our enemies to the furthest corners of this Earth. It must be war without quarter, pursuit without rest, victory without qualification — Tom DeLay

I have long believed that sacrifice is the pinnacle of patriotism. — Bob Riley

Today, the United States stands as a beacon of liberty and democratic strength before the community of nations. We are resolved to stand firm against those who would destroy the freedoms we cherish. We are determined to achieve an enduring peace - a peace with liberty and with honor. This determination, this resolve, is the highest tribute we can pay to the many who have fallen in the service of our Nation. — Ronald Reagan

They, and we, are the legacies of an unbroken chain of proud men and women who served their country with honor, who waged war so that we might know peace, who braved hardship so that we might know opportunity, who paid the ultimate price so that we might know freedom. — Barack Obama

We must kill them in war, just because they live beyond the river. If they lived on this side, we would be called murderers. — Blaise Pascal

Their silent wounds have speech
More eloquent than men;
Their tones can deeper reach
Than human voice or pen. — William Robert Woodman

We must be prepared to make the same heroic sacrifices for the cause of peace that we make ungrudgingly for the cause of war. — Albert Einstein

If the baser instinct of rampant self-preservation adamantly refuses to surrender itself to the infinitely greater call of self-sacrifice, in attempting to save our lives we will have in reality completely destroyed our lives. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

True patriotism isn't cheap. It's about taking on a fair share of the burden of keeping America going. — Robert Reich

Today, the men from that meeting are frozen in photographs.
They are immortal, or rather: they must never be forgotten.
The villa has become a place of memorial.
I visited it one gloriously sunny day in July 2004.
You can walk through the horror.
The long table used for the meeting is frightening.
As if the objects had taken part in the crime.
The place with forever be charged with terror.
So this is what it means, when a chill runs down your spine.
I had never understood that expression before.
The physical manifestation of an invisible icy finger.
Tracing the vertebrae in your back. — David Foenkinos

There's intense national feeling in America that could be called patriotism. — Michael Ignatieff

I have one sentiment for soldiers living and dead: cheers for the
living; tears for the dead. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Gray stood up and came round the desk. "Think of the words on that memorial, Wraysford. Think of those stinking towns and foul bloody villages whose names will be turned into some bogus glory by fat-arsed historians who have sat in London. We were there. As our punishment for God knows what, we were there, and our men died in each of those disgusting places. I hate their names. I hate the sound of them and the thought of them, which is why I will not bring myself to remind you. But listen." He put his face close to Stephen's. "There are four words they will chisel beneath them at the bottom. Four words that people will look at one day. When they read the other words they will want to vomit. When they read these, they will bow their heads, just a little. 'Final advance and pursuit.' Don't tell me you don't want to put your name to those words. — Sebastian Faulks

Holocaust Memorial Day is intended as an inclusive commemoration of all the individuals and communities who suffered as a result of the Holocaust - not only Jews, but also Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals, political prisoners and dozens of ethnic and other minorities. — Jack Straw

Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying gratitude. America will never forget their sacrifices. — Harry S. Truman

Their own souls rose and cried
Alarum when they heard the sudden wail
Of stricken freedom and along the gale
Saw her eternal banner quivering wide. — John Le Gay Brereton

Their sacrifice was great, but not in vain. All Americans and every free nation on earth can trace their liberty to the white markers of places like Arlington National Cemetery. And may God keep us ever grateful. — George W. Bush