" Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Forces: 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. The hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere are with you...." (General Dwight D. Eisenhower - June 6, 1944. D-Day)

The National D-Day Memorial was dedicated on June 6, 2001 in Bedford, Virginia. Bedford, a small town in central Virginia, was chosen as the site for the memorial because it lost 21 of its sons out of a population of 3200 (in 1944). This is said to be the highest per capita loss from any one town. The Overlord Arch pictured above at the National D-Day Memorial is dedicated to the 170 soldiers who participated in the first asault wave on D-Day. Of those 170 brave soldiers, 35 were from Bedford, VA. Of the 35 boys from Bedford, 19 were killed in the first fifteen minutes of fighting and two more died later that day. Of the entire group of 170 soldiers in the first wave, 91 were killed and 64 more were wounded.

President Bush was present in Beford on June 6, 2001 to dedicate the memorial. This is an excerpt from his speech on that day:

The achievement of Operation Overlord is nearly impossible to overstate, in its consequences for our own lives and the life of the world. 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. When the day was over, America and her 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 into grassy fields sown with landmines. They overran machine gun nests hidden everywhere, punched through walls of barbed wire, overtook bunkers of concreteand steel. The great journalist Ernie Pyle said, "It seemed to me a pure miracle
that we ever took the beach at all. The advantages were all theirs, the disadvantages all ours. And yet," said Pyle, "we got on."

A father and his son both fell during Operation Overlord. So did 33 pairs of brothers, including a boy having the same name as his hometown, Bedford T. Hoback, and his brother Raymond. Their sister Lucille, is with us today. She has recalled that Raymond was offered an early discharge for health reasons, but he turned it down. "He didn't want to leave his brother," she remembers. "He had come over with him, and he was going to stay with him." Both were killed on D-day. The only trace of
Raymond Hoback was his Bible, found in the sand. Their mother asked that Bedford be laid to rest in France with Raymond, so that her sons might always be together.

Perhaps some of you knew Gordon White, Sr. He died here just a few years ago, at the age of 95, the last living parent of a soldier who died on D-day. His boy Henry, loved his days on the family farm and was especially fond of a workhorse named Major. Family members recall how Gordon just couldn't let
go of Henry's old horse, and he never did. For 25 years after the war, Major was cherished by Gordon White as a last link to his son and a link to another life.

Upon this beautiful town fell the heaviest share of Americanlosses on D-day, 19 men from a community of 3,200, 4 more afterwards. When people come here, it is important to see the town as the monument itself. Here were the images these soldiers carried with them and the thought of when they were
afraid. This is the place they left behind, and here was the life they dreamed of returning to. They did not yearn to be heroes. They yearned for those long summer nights again and harvest time and paydays. They wanted to see Mom and Dad
again and hold their sweethearts or wives or, for one young man who lived here, to see that baby girl born while he was away.
Bedford has a special place in our history. But there were neighborhoods like these all over America, from the
smallest villages to the greatest cities. And somehow they all produced a generation of young men and women who, on a date certain, gathered and advanced as one and changed the course of history. Whatever it is about America that has given us such citizens, it is the greatest quality we have, and may it never
leave us.

To learn more about the Boys from Bedford you can read a book called The Bedford Boys: One American Town's Ultimate D-Day Sacrifice by Alex Kershaw