Remarks on Signing the National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day Proclamation and the Proclamation To Establish the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument,
December 5, 2008

The President. Thank you all for coming. I am going to sign two documents: one a Pearl Harbor Day Proclamation, and the other creating the World War II Valor in Pacific National Monument. The national monument will include nine sites: five in Hawaii, three in Alaska, and one in California at the Tule Lake Segregation Center, where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.

The purpose of the monument is to remind generations of Americans of the sacrifices that Americans made to protect our country. But there’s a broader purpose as well, and that is to remind generations of Americans about the transformative effect of freedom.

One of the great stories of—during World War II was that people fought bitterly to defend our country and way of life, and then worked to help our enemies develop democracies according to their own cultures and their own history. And today I am so pleased to report that Japan is a strong ally of the United States of America, an ally in defending our liberties, and an ally in spreading liberty as the great ideological alternative to an enemy that still wants to do us harm.

And so this monument will help people realize the breadth and the history of World War II and its aftermath.

So I’m pleased to sign both documents, and I want to thank our distinguished visitors for joining me.

[At this point, the President signed the proclamations.]

The President. Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 10:25 a.m. in the Oval Office at the White House.