D Day Quotes

• The day before the anniversary of D-Day, we lost a man who was equaled by few and surpassed by none as a leader in the cause of freedom: Ronald Reagan.

  Mac Thornberry

  Anniversary, Men, Leader

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• Well, they didn't lack for topics after Hiroshima. Why should 9/11 slow them down? I know it got a lot of press, but it's just a few large buildings and aircraft, it's not like D-Day and the Seige of Berlin.

  Bruce Sterling

  Literature, Berlin, Topics

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• The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Prayer, Military, Eye

  1944 Despatch to US forces on D-Day, 6 Jun

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• They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Fighting, Sacrifice, Lust

  Franklin D. Roosevelt (1995). “The Essential Franklin Delano Roosevelt”, Gramercy

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• D-Day represents the greatest achievement of the american people and system in the 20th century. It was the pivot point of the 20th century. It was the day on which the decision was made as to who was going to rule in this world in the second half of the 20th century. Is it going to be Nazism, is it going to be communism, or are the democracies going to prevail?

  Stephen Ambrose

  Peace, War, People

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• These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.

  Ronald Reagan

  War, Hero, Sacrifice

  Remarks on the 40th Anniversary of D-Day, delivered 6 June 1984 in Pointe Du Hoc, Normandy, France

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• There has never been a military operation remotely approaching the scale and the complexity of D-Day. It involved 176,000 troops, more than 12,000 airplanes, almost 10,000 ships, boats, landing craft, frigates, sloops, and other special combat vessels--all involved in a surprise attack on the heavily fortified north coast of France, to secure a beachhead in the heart of enemy-held territory so that the march to Germany and victory could begin. It was daring, risky, confusing, bloody, and ultimately glorious [p.25]

  Tom Brokaw

  Military, Heart, Airplane

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• Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Badass, Eye, Soldier

  Order of the Day, 2 June 1944

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• This operation is not being planned with any alternatives. This operation is planned as a victory, and that's the way it's going to be. We're going down there, and we're throwing everything we have into it, and we're going to make it a success.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Ghetto, Sacrifice, Victory

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• I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory! Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Good Luck, Ghetto, Sacrifice

  Address to the Officers and Men of the Third Armored Division, www.3ad.com. June 02, 1944.

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• It was unknowable then, but so much of the progress that would define the 20th century, on both sides of the Atlantic, came down to the battle for a slice of beach only six miles long and two miles wide.

  Barack Obama

  Beach, Sacrifice, Long

  "Obama on D-Day: 'The Evil We Faced Had to Be Stopped'" by Karen Travers, Jake Tapper, Sunlen Miller, abcnews.go.com. June 6, 2009.

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• We will accept nothing less than full Victory!

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Victory, World War 2, Wwii

  Order of the Day, delivered 6 June 1944

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• We want to get the hell over there. The quicker we clean up this Goddamned mess, the quicker we can take a little jaunt against the purple pissing Japs and clean out their nest, too. Before the Goddamned Marines get all of the credit.

  George S. Patton

  Military, War, Ghetto

  Speech to the Third Army on June 05, 1944. "The Unknown Patton". Book by Charles M. Province, p. 32, www.pattonhq.com. 1983.

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• The eyes of the world are upon you.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Eye, World, Wwii

  Order of the Day, 2 June 1944

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• Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well-trained, well-equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  War, Fighting, Enemy

  Order of the Day, delivered 6 June 1944

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• When pressure mounts and strain increases everyone begins to show the weaknesses in his makeup. It is up to the Commander to conceal his: above all to conceal doubt, fear, and distrust.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Ghetto, Sacrifice, Makeup

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• Never in history has the navy landed an army at the planned time and place. But if you land us anywhere within 50 miles of Fedela and within 1 week of D-Day. I'll go ahead and win.

  George S. Patton

  War, Army, Winning

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• And what a plan! This vast operation is undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult that has ever occurred.

  Winston Churchill

  Sacrifice, Complicated, Operations

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• That road to V-E Day was hard and long, and traveled by weary and valiant men. And history will always record where that road began. It began here, with the first footprints on the beaches of Normandy.

  George W. Bush

  Beach, Sacrifice, Men

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• Lieutenant Welsh remembered walking around among the sleeping men, and thinking to himself that 'they had looked at and smelled death all around them all day but never even dreamed of applying the term to themselves. They hadn't come here to fear. They hadn't come to die. They had come to win.

  Stephen Ambrose

  Sleep, Sacrifice, Men

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• God almighty, in a few short hours we will be in battle with the enemy. We do not join battle afraid. We do not ask favors or indulgence but ask that, if You will, use us as Your instrument for the right and an aid in returning peace to the world.

  Robert Lee Wolverton

  Sacrifice, Enemy, Battle

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• If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Faults, Blame, Normandy

  "The Speech Eisenhower Never Gave On The Normandy Invasion". "Weekend Edition Saturday" with Scott Simon, www.npr.org. June 08, 2013.

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• Nothing to do with nature, unless you count human nature.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Human Nature, Diagonal, Humans

  Barbara Kingsolver (2009). “Animal Dreams: A Novel”, p.14, Harper Collins

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• We know that progress is not inevitable. But neither was victory upon these beaches. Now, as then, the inner voice tells us to stand up and move forward. Now, as then, free people must choose.

  William J. Clinton

  Beach, Moving, Sacrifice

  Clinton, William J. (1994). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 1994”, p.1046, Best Books on

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• Men, I am not a religious man and I don't know your feelings in this matter, but I am going to ask you to pray with me for the success of the mission before us. And while we pray, let us get on our knees and not look down but up with faces raised to the sky so that we can see God and ask his blessing in what we are about to do.

  Robert Lee Wolverton

  Religious, Sacrifice, Blessing

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