Good afternoon. Thank you, President Sarkozy, Prime Minister Brown, Prime Minister Harper, and Prince Charles for being here today. Thank you to our Secretary of Veterans Affairs, General Eric Shinseki, for making the trip out here to join us. Thanks also to Susan Eisenhower, whose grandfather began this mission 65 years ago with a simple charge: "Ok, let's go." And to a World War II veteran who returned home from this war to serve a proud and distinguished career as a United States Senator and a national leader: Bob Dole. 下午好。感谢萨科齐总统、布朗首相、哈珀首相和查尔斯王子今天莅临现场。感谢我们的退伍军人事务部部长埃里克·新关将军专程赶来参加今天的活动。同样感谢苏珊·艾森豪威尔,她的祖父65年前开启了这次使命,留下了简短的命令："好,出发吧。"感谢一位二战老兵,他从战场归来后,成为一名美国参议员和国家领袖,度过了荣耀而卓越的职业生涯：鲍勃·多尔。
I'm not the first American President to come and mark this anniversary, and I likely will not be the last. This is an event that has long brought to this coast both heads of state and grateful citizens; veterans and their loved ones; the liberated and their liberators. It's been written about and spoken of and depicted in countless books and films and speeches. And long after our time on this Earth has passed, one word will still bring forth the pride and awe of men and women who will never meet the heroes who sit before us: D-Day. 我不是第一位来纪念这个周年的美国总统,很可能也不会是最后一位。这一事件长期以来吸引着各国元首和心怀感恩的公民、退伍军人及其亲属、被解放者和解放者来到这片海岸。无数的书籍、电影和演讲记录和描绘了这一事件。即使我们在地球上的岁月早已流逝,一个词仍会让那些从未见过坐在我们面前的英雄的人们心生自豪和敬畏：诺曼底登陆日。
Why is this? Of all the battles in all the wars across the span of human history, why does this day hold such a revered place in our memory? What is it about the struggle that took place on the sands a few short steps from here that brings us back to remember year after year after year? 这是为什么？在人类历史长河中的所有战争的所有战役中,为什么这一天在我们的记忆中占据如此崇高的地位？是在离这里几步之遥的沙滩上发生的这场斗争有什么特别之处,让我们年复一年地回来纪念？
Part of it, I think, is the size of the odds that weighed against success. For three centuries, no invader had ever been able to cross the English Channel into Normandy. And it had never been more difficult than in 1944. 我想,部分原因在于成功所面临的巨大困难。三个世纪以来,从未有入侵者能够成功横渡英吉利海峡进入诺曼底。而在1944年,这变得比以往任何时候都更加困难。
That was the year that Hitler ordered his top field marshal to fortify the Atlantic Wall against a seaborne invasion. From the tip of Norway to southern France, the Nazis lined steep cliffs with machine guns and artillery. Low-lying areas were flooded to block passage. Sharpened poles awaited paratroopers. Mines were laid on the beaches and beneath the water. And by the time of the invasion, half a million Germans waited for the Allies along the coast between Holland and northern France. 那一年,希特勒命令他的顶级陆军元帅加固"大西洋壁垒"以抵御海上入侵。从挪威南端到法国南部,纳粹在陡峭的悬崖上架设了机枪和大炮。低洼地区被淹没以阻断通行。削尖的木桩等待着伞兵。地雷布设在海滩和水下。到入侵时,从荷兰到法国北部的海岸线上,五十万德军等待着盟军的到来。
At dawn on June 6th, the Allies came. The best chance for victory had been for the British Royal Air Corps to take out the guns on the cliffs while airborne divisions parachuted behind enemy lines. But all did not go according to plan. 6月6日黎明时分,盟军来了。胜利的最佳机会是英国皇家空军在空降师在敌后降落的同时摧毁悬崖上的火炮。但一切并未按计划进行。
Paratroopers landed miles from their mark, while the fog and clouds prevented Allied planes from destroying the guns on the cliffs. So when the ships landed here at Omaha, an unimaginable hell rained down on the men inside. Many never made it out of the boats. 伞兵们降落在距离目标数英里之外的地方,而雾和云层阻止了盟军飞机摧毁悬崖上的火炮。因此,当船只在这里的奥马哈登陆时,难以想象的炮火倾泻而下,困在里面的人们陷入了地狱。许多人再也没有走出船舱。
And yet, despite all of this, one by one, the Allied forces made their way to shore -- here, and at Utah and Juno; Gold and Sword. They were American, British, and Canadian. Soon, the paratroopers found each other and fought their way back. The Rangers scaled the cliffs. And by the end of the day, against all odds, the ground on which we stand was free once more. 然而,尽管面临这一切,盟军部队一个接一个地登上了海滩——这里、犹他滩、朱诺滩、黄金滩和宝剑滩。他们来自美国、英国和加拿大。很快,伞兵们找到了彼此,并杀出一条血路返回。游骑兵攀上了悬崖。到当天结束时,在不可能的情况下,我们脚下的这片土地再次获得了自由。
The sheer improbability of this victory is part of what makes D-Day so memorable. It also arises from the clarity of purpose with which this war was waged. 这场胜利的极度不可能性正是诺曼底登陆日如此令人难忘的原因之一。它也源于这场战争所秉持的明确目标。
We live in a world of competing beliefs and claims about what is true. It's a world of varied religions and cultures and forms of government. In such a world, it's all too rare for a struggle to emerge that speaks to something universal about humanity. 我们生活在一个充满竞争性信仰和各种真理主张的世界里。这是一个有着不同宗教、文化和政府形式的世界。在这样的世界里,能够反映出人类某种普遍性的斗争实属罕见。
The Second World War did that. No man who shed blood or lost a brother would say that war is good. But all know that this war was essential. For what we faced in Nazi totalitarianism was not just a battle of competing interests. It was a competing vision of humanity. Nazi ideology sought to subjugate and humiliate and exterminate. It perpetrated murder on a massive scale, fueled by a hatred of those who were deemed different and therefore inferior. It was evil. 第二次世界大战做到了这一点。没有哪个流血或失去兄弟的人会说战争是好事。但所有人都知道这场战争是必要的。因为我们在纳粹极权主义中所面对的不仅仅是利益竞争。这是一种关于人类的不同愿景的竞争。纳粹意识形态旨在征服、羞辱和灭绝。它制造了大规模的屠杀,其动力来自于对那些被视为不同并因此低劣的人的仇恨。它是邪恶的。
The nations that joined together to defeat Hitler's Reich were not perfect. They had made their share of mistakes, had not always agreed with one another on every issue. But whatever God we prayed to, whatever our differences, we knew that the evil we faced had to be stopped. Citizens of all faiths and of no faith came to believe that we could not remain as bystanders to the savage perpetration of death and destruction. And so we joined and sent our sons to fight and often die so that men and women they never met might know what it is to be free. 联合起来击败希特勒帝国的国家并不完美。他们犯过自己的错误,并非在所有问题上都达成一致。但无论我们向哪位神祈祷,无论我们的分歧如何,我们都明白我们面对的邪恶必须被制止。所有信仰者和非信仰者都开始相信,我们不能对野蛮的死亡和破坏行为袖手旁观。因此,我们联合起来,派我们的儿子去战斗,并经常牺牲,以便那些他们从未见过的人能够了解什么是自由。
In America, it was an endeavor that inspired a nation to action. A President who asked his country to pray on D-Day also asked its citizens to serve and sacrifice to make the invasion possible. On farms and in factories, millions of men and women worked three shifts a day, month after month, year after year. Trucks and tanks came from plants in Michigan and Indiana, New York and Illinois. Bombers and fighter planes rolled off assembly lines in Ohio and Kansas, where my grandmother did her part as an inspector. 在美国,这是一个激励全国行动的事业。一位总统在诺曼底登陆日要求他的国家祈祷,也要求其公民服务和牺牲,使入侵成为可能。在农场和工厂里,数百万男女日复一日、月复一月、年复一年地三班倒工作。卡车和坦克来自密歇根州和印第安纳州、纽约州和伊利诺伊州的工厂。轰炸机和战斗机在俄亥俄州和堪萨斯州的装配线上下线,我的祖母在那里担任检查员。
Shipyards on both coasts produced the largest fleet in history, including the landing craft from New Orleans that eventually made it here to Omaha. 两岸的造船厂生产了历史上最大的舰队,包括来自新奥尔良的登陆艇,它们最终来到了奥马哈。
But despite all the years of planning and preparation, despite the inspiration of our leaders, the skill of our generals, the strength of our firepower and the unyielding support from our home front, the outcome of the entire struggle would ultimately rest on the success of one day in June. 但是,尽管经过了多年的计划和准备,尽管我们的领导人提供了灵感,我们的将军展现了技能,我们的火力展现了力量,我们的后方提供了坚定不移的支持,整个斗争的结果最终还是要取决于六月的这一天的成败。
Lyndon Johnson once said that there are certain moments when "history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom." 林登·约翰逊曾经说过,有些时刻"历史和命运在单一时间、单一地点相遇,塑造了人类对自由永无止境追求的转折点。"
D-Day was such a moment. One newspaper noted that "we have come to the hour for which we were born." 诺曼底登陆日就是这样一个时刻。一家报纸指出,"我们来到了我们为之而生的时刻。"
Had the Allies failed here, Hitler's occupation of this continent might have continued indefinitely. Instead, victory here secured a foothold in France. It opened a path to Berlin. It made possible the achievements that followed the liberation of Europe: the Marshall Plan, the NATO alliance, the shared prosperity and security that flowed from each. 如果盟军在这里失败,希特勒对这个大陆的占领可能会无限期地持续下去。相反,这里的胜利确保了在法国的立足点。它开辟了通往柏林的道路。它使欧洲解放后取得的成就成为可能：马歇尔计划、北约联盟,以及从中产生的共同繁荣和安全。
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. 当时无法预知,但定义20世纪的许多进步,在大西洋两岸,都归结为对这片仅有六英里长、两英里宽的海滩的争夺。
More particularly, it came down to the men who landed here -- those who now rest in this place for eternity, and those who are with us here today. Perhaps more than any other reason, you, the veterans of that landing, are why we still remember what happened on D-Day. You're why we keep coming back. 更具体地说,这归结为那些在这里登陆的人——那些现在在这个地方永远安息的人,以及今天和我们在一起的人。也许比任何其他原因都更重要的,是你们这些那次登陆的退伍军人,让我们仍然记得诺曼底登陆日发生的事情。你们是我们不断回来的原因。
For you remind us that in the end, human destiny is not determined by forces beyond our control. You remind us that our future is not shaped by mere chance or circumstance. Our history has always been the sum total of the choices made and the actions taken by each individual man and woman. It has always been up to us. 因为你们提醒我们,最终,人类的命运不是由我们无法控制的力量决定的。你们提醒我们,我们的未来不是由单纯的偶然或环境塑造的。我们的历史一直是由每个男人和女人做出的选择和采取的行动的总和。这始终取决于我们。
You could have done what Hitler believed you would do when you arrived here. In the face of a merciless assault from these cliffs, you could have idled the boats offshore. Amid a barrage of tracer bullets that lit the night sky, you could have stayed in those planes. You could have hid in the hedgerows or waited behind the seawall. You could have done only what was necessary to ensure your own survival. 你们本可以按照希特勒认为你们到达这里时会做的事情去做。面对来自这些悬崖的无情攻击,你们本可以让船只在近海闲置。在照亮夜空的曳光弹的弹幕中,你们本可以留在那些飞机里。你们本可以躲在灌木篱墙里或躲在防波堤后面。你们本可以只做必要的事情来确保自己的生存。
But that's not what you did. That's not the story you told on D-Day. Your story was written by men like Zane Schlemmer of the 82nd Airborne, who parachuted into a dark marsh, far from his objective and his men. Lost and alone, he still managed to fight his way through the gunfire and help liberate the town in which he landed -- a town where a street now bears his name. 但那不是你们所做的。那不是你们在诺曼底登陆日讲述的故事。你们的故事是由像第82空降师的赞恩·施莱默这样的人写就的,他降落在黑暗的沼泽中,远离他的目标和他的人。迷失和孤独,他仍然设法穿过炮火,帮助解放了他降落的城镇——那个城镇的一条街道现在以他的名字命名。
It's a story written by men like Anthony Ruggiero, an Army Ranger who saw half the men on his landing craft drown when it was hit by shellfire just a thousand yards off this beach. He spent three hours in freezing water, and was one of only 90 Rangers to survive out of the 225 who were sent to scale the cliffs. 这是一个由像安东尼·鲁杰罗这样的人写就的故事,他是一名陆军游骑兵,看到他的登陆艇上的一半人员在距离这片海滩仅一千码的地方被炮火击中时淹死。他在冰冷的水中度过了三个小时,是被派去攀爬悬崖的225名游骑兵中仅存的90名幸存者之一。
And it's a story written by so many who are no longer with us, like Carlton Barrett. Private Barrett was only supposed to serve as a guide for the 1st Infantry Division, but he instead became one of its heroes. After wading ashore in neck-deep water, he returned to the water again and again and again to save his wounded and drowning comrades. And under the heaviest possible enemy fire, he carried them to safety. He carried them in his own arms. 这也是由许多已经不在我们身边的人们写就的故事,比如卡尔顿·巴雷特。巴雷特二等兵本应担任第一步兵师的向导,但他却成为了该师的英雄之一。在齐颈深的水中涉水上岸后,他一次又一次地返回水中,拯救他受伤和溺水的战友。在最猛烈的敌军火力下,他将他们背到安全地带。他用他自己的双臂将他们背起。
This is the story of the Allied victory. It's the legend of units like Easy Company and the All-American 82nd. It's the tale of the British people, whose courage during the Blitz forced Hitler to call off the invasion of England; the Canadians, who came even though they were never attacked; the Russians, who sustained some of the war's heaviest casualties on the Eastern front; and all those French men and women who would rather have died resisting tyranny than lived within its grasp. 这是盟军胜利的故事。这是像E连和全美第82空降师这样部队的传奇。这是英国人民的故事,他们在闪电战中的勇气迫使希特勒取消了对英国的入侵；加拿大人的故事,尽管他们从未被攻击,但他们还是来了；俄罗斯人的故事,他们在东线承受了战争中一些最惨重的伤亡；以及所有那些宁愿死于抵抗暴政也不愿生活在暴政统治下的法国男女的故事。
It is the memories that have been passed on to so many of us about the service or sacrifice of a friend or relative. For me, it is my grandfather, Stanley Dunham, who arrived on this beach six weeks after D-Day and marched across Europe in Patton's Army. And it is my great uncle who was part of the first American division to reach and liberate a Nazi concentration camp. His name is Charles Payne, and I'm so proud that he's with us here today. 这是传递给我们许多人的关于朋友或亲属的服务或牺牲的记忆。对我来说,这是我的祖父斯坦利·邓纳姆,他在诺曼底登陆日后六周到达这片海滩,并在巴顿的军队中横跨欧洲。这是我的叔叔,他是第一个到达并解放纳粹集中营的美国师的一员。他的名字是查尔斯·佩恩,我很自豪他今天能和我们在一起。
I know this trip doesn't get any easier as the years pass, but for those of you who make it, there's nothing that could keep you away. One such veteran, a man named Jim Norene, was a member of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Division of the 101st Airborne. Last night, after visiting this cemetery for one last time, he passed away in his sleep. Jim was gravely ill when he left his home, and he knew that he might not return. But just as he did 65 years ago, he came anyway. May he now rest in peace with the boys he once bled with, 我知道随着年龄的增长,这次旅行并不会变得更容易,但对于那些来的人来说,没有什么能阻止你们。一位这样的老兵,名叫吉姆·诺雷恩,是第101空降师第502伞兵步兵师的成员。昨晚,在最后一次参观这个公墓后,他在睡梦中去世了。吉姆在离开家时病情严重,他知道他可能无法返回。但就像65年前一样,他还是来了。
and may his family always find solace in the heroism he showed here. 愿他现在能与他曾经并肩流血的战友们一起安息,愿他的家人永远能在他这里展现的英雄主义中找到慰藉。
In the end, Jim Norene came back to Normandy for the same reason we all come back. He came for the reason articulated by Howard Huebner, another former paratrooper who is here with us today. When asked why he made the trip, Howard said, "It's important that we tell our stories. It doesn't have to be something big just a little story about what happened -- so people don't forget." 最终,吉姆·诺雷恩回到诺曼底的原因与我们所有人回来的原因相同。他回来是因为今天和我们在一起的另一位前伞兵霍华德·休布纳所表达的原因。当被问及为什么来这次旅行时,霍华德说,"重要的是我们讲述我们的故事。不一定是大事——只是关于发生的事情的小故事——这样人们就不会忘记。"
So people don't forget. 这样人们就不会忘记。
Friends and veterans, we cannot forget. What we must not forget is that D-Day was a time and a place where the bravery and the selflessness of a few was able to change the course of an entire century. At an hour of maximum danger, amid the bleakest of circumstances, men who thought themselves ordinary found within themselves the ability to do something extraordinary. They fought for their moms and sweethearts back home, for the fellow warriors they came to know as brothers. And they fought out of a simple sense of duty -- 朋友们,退伍军人们,我们不能忘记。我们绝不能忘记的是,诺曼底登陆日是一个时间和地点,少数人的勇敢和无私能够改变整个世纪的进程。在最危险的时刻,在最黑暗的环境下,那些认为自己普通的人发现自己有能力做一些非凡的事情。他们为家乡的母亲和恋人而战,为他们后来认识为兄弟的战友而战。
a duty sustained by the same ideals for which their countrymen had once fought and bled for over two centuries. 他们出于简单的责任感而战——一种由他们的同胞两个多世纪以来曾经为之战斗和流血的相同理想所支撑的责任感。
That is the story of Normandy -- but also the story of America; of the Minutemen who gathered on a green in Lexington; of the Union boys from Maine who repelled a charge at Gettysburg; of the men who gave their last full measure of devotion at Inchon and Khe San; of all the young men and women whose valor and goodness still carry forward this legacy of service and sacrifice. It's a story that has never come easy, but one that always gives us hope. For as we face down the hardships and struggles of our time, and arrive at that hour for which we were born, 这就是诺曼底的故事——也是美国的故事；在莱克星顿的草坪上集结的民兵的故事；在葛底斯堡击退冲锋的来自缅因州的联邦士兵的故事；在仁川和溪山献出最后全部奉献的人的故事；所有那些勇敢和善良的年轻男女,他们的英勇和善良仍然延续着这一服务和牺牲的传统。这是一个从未轻易得来的故事,但一个总是给我们带来希望的故事。
we cannot help but draw strength from those moments in history when the best among us were somehow able to swallow their fears and secure a beachhead on an unforgiving shore. 因为当我们面对我们时代的困难和斗争,到达我们为之而生的时刻时,我们不禁会从历史中汲取力量,当我们中最优秀的人能够克服恐惧,在无情海滩上建立一个滩头阵地时。
To those men who achieved that victory 65 years ago, we thank you for your service. 对于65年前取得那场胜利的人们,我们感谢你们的服务。
May God bless you, and may God bless the memory of all those who rest here. 愿上帝保佑你们,愿上帝保佑所有安息在这里的人们的记忆。