Pence praises US veterans who took part in D-Day
BEDFORD, Va. — Vice President Mike Pence has traveled to the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford and paid tribute to what he calls “the pride of our nation” — the remaining U.S. veterans who participated in the D-Day landings in France that took place 75 years ago.
Pence says “we marvel at the courage that you showed as young men.”
With those veterans in mind, as well as those who died on D-Day or years later, he said: “We say one more time, thank you for your service, thank you for our freedom.”
The rural Virginia town’s D-Day losses were among the steepest, proportionally, of any American community. Twenty men from Bedford or the surrounding area were killed on D-Day — June 6, 1944. Bedford had a population of about 4,000 at the time.
Pence highlighted the story of the fallen, who came to be known as the “Bedford Boys.”
He says the truest memorial to them is “Our freedom, the freedom they fought and sacrificed so much for.”
At Normandy, France, leaders of many nations honored the memory of the fallen and the singular bravery of all Allied troops who sloshed through bloodied water to the landing beaches, a tribute of thanks 75 years after the massive D-Day assault that doomed the Nazi occupation of France and portended the fall of Hitler’s Third Reich.
