ARLINGTON, Va., May 29 — President Bush paid homage to fallen members of the nation's military on Monday, using his annual Memorial Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery to draw a link between those who fought in an earlier era and those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. Bush spoke at the cemetery's marble-columned amphitheater after placing a floral wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns, on a hillside overlooking the Potomac. The president vowed to honor those who had died in Iraq and Afghanistan "by completing the mission for which they gave their lives: by defeating the terrorists, by advancing the cause of liberty and by laying the foundation of peace for a generation of young Americans."

Seeking to draw a connection to wars past, the president quoted from two similar letters written more than half a century apart, the first by Second Lt. Jack Lundberg, who died two weeks after D-Day, the other by First Lt. Mark Dooley, killed by a bomb last September in Ramadi, Iraq. Lieutenant Lundberg wrote his parents to say, "The United States of America is worth the sacrifice."