PARIS IS FREE

[Music] the date was August 25th these are guys you might have taken basic with at Fort Benning or Davis or Devon's or Dix they were in Paris on August 25th Paris France the big underline for the word France because this old fellow her/him had been walking around the streets for four years in Paris Germany sleepwalking in a kind of German nightmare now would belong to them again GI Joe and his big tank in his little Jeep and his dirty pants was lucky enough to be there to get some dividends from the way they felt about it like that it wasn't fuel to the Yanks they'd been in France a couple of months already but just the same it was very pleasant to be around when liberation came to Paris yeah the kisses the yelling the waving the sheepish GI grins of what it looks like this business of liberation bull Elijah America magnified the wonderful America but you get just look it seems like this and say that's what liberation is you can't look at the simple wonderful joy in Paris in August 1944 forget what came before or what must come after freedom can write its name the walls and floors in the lab of a young Parisien [Music] it's a lot more serious than it looks because freedom is history strangely enough but of the history of freedom comes from Paris let's go back aways this is Paris before anyone but Germany was thinking about war Eiffel Tower champagne a buck a bottle holy [ __ ] and you know what that's what people said about sidewalk cafes in the artist sections for you sip wine for five francs a bottle and look twice at the French girls in the boulevards nightclubs where you saw things you'll never see again or tell about Harry Wow where a man can have the best time in the world that's not Paris the French minute was a different thing the Frenchman Paris was all and none of France gloriously and imperishable symbolic of French simplicity and dignity lovely green of the shores all his aid the simple quiet beauty of the medal end of song Chappell no to Adam Paris was the grace of France all wrapped up in the cracks and cobblestones and suppliers and smells and sounds of one of the oldest cities on the continent but even Paris in stone isn't Paris to history Paris is an ancient city where men first began to get up on their feet and talk about the rights of human beings for history the cock-eyed old streets and alleyways are alive the plain men beginning to talk of liberty and fraternity in 1789 a ragged bunch of Frenchmen who believed in freedom fought and earned the right to have the Democratic world rescued their great-grandchildren in 1944 because history plays tricks whatever the reverse of liberation is it looked like this on a bright June day in 1940 Germans one of the Paris Paris wanted a nightmare the faces of Paris shut up the shutters of Paris close inside France Frenchmen poured and waited in the only way they could one june day over radios which were death to own they heard the voice of an american eisenhower from london it was June 6th 1944 back in the secret headquarters of the Paris underground the men and women of the French forces of the interior who for four years had played a game of deadly hide-and-seek with the Germans knew that time was close for them to come out from the dark into the Sun get out the grenades check the guns wear the badge of freedom the Germans Seventh Army is trapped at Falaise Paris waited quiet then the fakers and plumbers and shoe clerks and their wives strut and as they went into the streets to build once more the barricades their fathers and grandfathers had built against the enemy their national anthem the Marseillaise beat through their hearts history plays tricks these were the same Paris streets that song had been born in in these buildings were full of holes a hundred and fifty years old Paris had declared war again Paris cut down our tree script upper favors remembering these words come on you sons of your country but day of Glory has arrived the enemy is tyranny let's raise our flag and flood against it come citizens of France or me we will march some will shed blood and lose their lives they marched they shed blood [Music] who lost their lives it was war between the German army and the citizens of Paris German tanks roamed the streets shooting up the town but mainly it was guerrilla warfare sniper against sniper [Music] familiar streets suddenly as hot with bullets as a border town guns dug out of the backyard bombs dished up by the corner druggist housewives and kids suddenly caught in a crossfire blood splatter of bullets Germans were finding out that the city of Champaign and sidewalk cafes was tough for five days and five nights of plastic but the citizens of Paris needed help it came Frenchman who for years before had joined the Gaul in England and in Africa had been moving with the Americans who were on the fringes of their beloved Paris on the sixth day of the bitter fight in Paris they cracked the Nazi lines south of the city and they were in Paris twisted cockeyed berries from behind which the valiant FF I had held the Germans for so many days with single-shot rifles and hunting pistols and museum pieces were pulled aside to let the armor through Frenchmen and GI Joes in tanks rolled under the Eiffel Tower and for Germans the Paris incident was over except for a desperate last-ditch fight [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] while the people of Paris - the incident was over and freedom and come back in the form of a new Nazi salute in a few hours time the Aryan conquerors the arrogant men who ruled by terror and distrust it melted into flight men in the wrong country with soiled uniforms and shaky knees muscle men who would like to goo step across the face of their Europe and shiny boots at the double time at down a Paris alleyway to keep from getting hauled out by a skinny French civilian wearing a dirty armband yeah for the Germans for their hands held in the air history had backfired Paris history had just repeated itself the city of gaiety and stone and history belonged again to French Oh while the conquerors were herded off to eat soup out of ten pockets of prison camps [Music] under the Arc de Triomphe general DeGaulle paid the first tribute at four years to the Unknown Soldier of the French Republic the living man was honoring the dead of France once more in a living City yes sir liberation looks like this the shutters and the heart of Paris opened suddenly into the sunlight flooded over the boulevards and squares like a tidal wave words they used as the names they shot don't care even if they could have been understood freedom to live again was just there in a crazy mass this was Paris again after four years of dream ask a Paris waiter what it means this business of being free again ask her what it's worth hi guys an hour and Omar Bradley knew the cost of liberation so it's worth that August day in Paris but Paris will not be liberated into a world of peace until manking and vanilla look like this the freemen of the earth can live together without guns for its one war no part of it is unimportant or forgotten Americans have always been famous for their marksmanship in past Wars we have always shot straight her faster and harder than the enemy never has that tradition been more splendidly Illustrated than today your Navy's Gunners are the finest in the world as the mounting toll of [ __ ] ships and aircraft testifies these gun crews all of them have a single aim in view to send to the bottom every [ __ ] ship on the seas and every [ __ ] plane in the air to silence every [ __ ] shore battery between US and Tokyo every naval air gunner has the same aim for every [ __ ] plane in his sights they can do it too if you shoot straight with them see that they get all the ammunition they need through your work and your savings show the world that every American shoots straight and hard