Bush marking Memorial Day at Normandy

On this Memorial Day, Bush said, younger Americans "know firsthand the price that was paid for their freedom."

PARIS, France (CNN) -- President George W. Bush heads Monday to the World War II beaches of Normandy to commemorate Memorial Day, but his remarks to D-Day veterans will speak to a modern-day America stunned by the September 11 attacks and braced for a long war against terrorism.

"All Memorial Days are days in which Americans ought to give thanks for freedom and the fact that somebody sacrificed for their freedom," Bush said Sunday in France. "This Memorial Day is the first Memorial Day in a long time in which younger Americans know firsthand the price that was paid for their freedom."

Other American presidents also have visited the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in northwest France, where the June 6, 1944, D-Day invasion helped fight Nazi Germany and end World War II.

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Bush's first stop in Normandy will be at Sainte-Mére Eglise, where he and his wife are to attend a memorial service. It was the first town to see battle on D-Day.

The Bushes will go to the cemetery and tour graves, including that of Teddy Roosevelt Jr., who landed at Normandy on D-Day.

President Bush will address about 2,000 D-Day veterans in a 15-minute speech. Bush and French President Jacques Chirac will walk along the cemetery's reflecting pool and will take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the cemetery's memorial.

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The memorial is on a cliff overlooking Omaha Beach and the English Channel in Colleville-sur Mer, France. The cemetery contains the graves of 9,386 war dead.

Speaking in Paris on Sunday amid tight security, Bush urged other nations to maintain a commitment to the anti-terror war effort, including beyond the current war front in Afghanistan.

Bush had earlier thanked France for its help as a "decisive ally" in the modern war against terror. (Full story)

Washington's policies on the environment, trade, Iraq and the Middle East have angered many in France, as well as the rest of Europe, and several organizations -- including pro-Palestinian groups, pacifists, Greens and Communists -- have held protests in Paris and Normandy.

The demonstrations were on a much smaller scale than those in Berlin, Germany, the first stop on Bush's four-nation European tour.

Bush has also visited Russia, where he signed a nuclear weapons disarmament treaty with President Vladimir Putin.

After France, he is going to Rome. Bush will met with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at Villa Madama.

On Tuesday, he will attend a summit marking the formation of the NATO-Russia Council, a body that gives Russia a voice in some NATO decision-making.