Marking a shared history
US, France observe D-day
COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France -- Under an overcast sky not unlike the morning 63 years ago when Allied forces stormed the Norman dy beaches below, US Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday pointed to their sacrifice to argue that the United States and France have long worked together to defeat tyranny and now must do so again.
Speaking at the US memorial on the northwest French coast overlooking the graves of 9,387 Americans killed during the battle for Normandy, Gates marked the anniversary of the D-day landings by recalling the shared history of France and the United States during World War II and the Cold War.
Despite occasional discord, he said, Washington and Paris "remained unified in purpose" against Nazi Germany and later Soviet communism.
Gates compared the current struggle with Islamic extremism to those two previous conflicts, arguing that it too was an ideological battle that could take years or decades to resolve against an enemy determined to destroy democratic values.
"Events like this also remind us of all we have endured together; remind us of our long history in times of war and in times of peace; remind us of the shared values that transcend whatever differences we may have had in the past or may have in the present," Gates said.
He addressed those comments directly to Herve Morin, the new French defense minister, who sat just feet away overlooking giant French and American flags straining in a brisk wind.
Morin said Western allies must never forget how costly it can be to recover freedom and democracy.
The United States and France did so "standing side by side" in two world wars, he said.
Gates's trip to France is the first by a senior American official since the inauguration last month of President Nicolas Sarkozy of France. 