re-writing history

[flo]

I hope God will still help protect this country.

[Mom70x7]

I looked this up in Snopes - which searches Urban Legends (http://www.snopes.com/). They said, basically, that this is a legend. The speech is quoted and a picture of the memorial is shown. The part on the memorial is shown below in red.

The "So Help Us God" is from a different part of the speech, and is shown below in blue.

The entire speech is given, and is also at http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrpearlharbor.htm.

So, yes, the words aren't there. But they weren't intended to be there.


As commander in chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph -- so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.[/i]

[flo]

I probably put in my quotation marks wrong.  The elderly lady was reading the inscription and when she got to the quote that you have in blue, those words "so help us God" were not there.  I searched the speech in Franklin D. Roosevelt's papers and those words are there, however I have not personally visited the WWII memorial.