Two soldiers salute the colors and playing of the National Anthem at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Va. President Bush dedicated the new memorial, June 6, 2001. The color guard stands under the huge Overlord Arc, the centerpiece of the memorial. Photo by Rudi Williams.(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

President Bush came to this small Blue Ridge town June 6 to dedicate the National D-Day Memorial to the soldiers who assaulted the beaches of Normandy, France, during World War II.

"You have raised a fitting memorial to D-Day and you've put it in just the right place," Bush told the crowd of more than 20,000. "Not on a battlefield of war, but in a small Virginia town, a place like so many others that were home tothe men and women who helped liberate a continent.

"What was gained that first day was a beach, and then a village and then a country. And in time, all of Western Europe would be freed from fascism and its armies," the president said. "Free societies in Europe can be traced to the first footprints on the first beach on June 6, 1944.

"What was lost on D-Day we can never measure and never forget," he said. "When the day was over, America and our Allies had lost at least 2,500 of the bravest men ever to wear a uniform. Many thousands more would die on the days that followed. They scaled towering cliffs, looking straight up into enemy fire. They dropped onto grassy fields sown with land mines. They