Reagan on the 40th anniversary of D-Day -- speech written by 33 yr. old Peggy Noonan.
At
dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, two hundred and twenty-five
Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these
cliffs.
Their
mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb
these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had
been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here, and they would be
trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.
The
Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliffs,
shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American
Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs
and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his
place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb
again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the
Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top
of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred
and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only ninety could still
bear arms.
And
behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust
into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there.
These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs.
These are the champions who helped free a continent. And these are the heroes
who helped end a war. Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of
Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your "lives fought for life and
left the vivid air signed with your honor."
I
think I know what you may be thinking right now -- thinking "we were just
part of a bigger effort; everyone was brave that day." Well everyone was.
Do you remember the story of Bill Millin of the 51st Highlanders? Forty years
ago today, British troops were pinned down near a bridge, waiting desperately
for help. Suddenly, they heard the sound of bagpipes, and some thought they
were dreaming. Well, they weren't. They looked up and saw Bill Millin with his
bagpipes, leading the reinforcements and ignoring the smack of the bullets into
the ground around him.
Lord
Lovat was with him -- Lord Lovat of Scotland, who calmly announced when he got
to the bridge, "Sorry, I'm a few minutes late," as if he'd been
delayed by a traffic jam, when in truth he'd just come from the bloody fighting
on Sword Beach, which he and his men had just taken.
There
was the impossible valor of the Poles, who threw themselves between the enemy
and the rest of Europe as the invasion took hold; and the unsurpassed courage
of the Canadians who had already seen the horrors of war on this coast. They
knew what awaited them there, but they would not be deterred. And once they hit
Juno Beach, they never looked back.
All of
these men were part of a roll call of honor with names that spoke of a pride as
bright as the colors they bore; The Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Poland's 24th
Lancers, the Royal Scots' Fusiliers, the Screaming Eagles, the Yeomen of
England's armored divisions, the forces of Free France, the Coast Guard's
"Matchbox Fleet," and you, the American Rangers.
Forty
summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the
day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the
deepest joys of life before you. Yet you risked everything here. Why? Why did
you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation
and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the
armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was
faith and belief. It was loyalty and love.
The
men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they
fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this
beachhead, or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have
not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of
force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to
liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause.
And you were right not to doubt.
You
all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying
for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable
form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you
were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were
behind you.
The
Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading
through the darkness back home. They fought -- or felt in their hearts, though
they couldn't know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at
4:00 am. In Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying. And in
Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.
Something
else helped the men of D-day; their rock-hard belief that Providence would have
a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this
great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton
asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer, he told them: "Do
not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what
we're about to do." Also, that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot,
listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: "I will not
fail thee nor forsake thee."
These
are the things that impelled them; these are the things that shaped the unity
of the Allies.
When
the war was over, there were lives to be rebuilt and governments to be returned
to the people. There were nations to be reborn. Above all, there was a new
peace to be assured. These were huge and daunting tasks. But the Allies
summoned strength from the faith, belief, loyalty, and love of those who fell
here. They rebuilt a new Europe together. There was first a great
reconciliation among those who had been enemies, all of whom had suffered so
greatly. The United States did its part, creating the Marshall Plan to help
rebuild our allies and our former enemies. The Marshall Plan led to the
Atlantic alliance -- a great alliance that serves to this day as our shield for
freedom, for prosperity, and for peace.
In
spite of our great efforts and successes, not all that followed the end of the
war was happy or planned. Some liberated countries were lost. The great sadness
of this loss echoes down to our own time in the streets of Warsaw, Prague, and
East Berlin. The Soviet troops that came to the center of this continent did
not leave when peace came. They're still there, uninvited, unwanted,
unyielding, almost forty years after the war. Because of this, allied forces
still stand on this continent. Today, as forty years ago, our armies are here
for only one purpose: to protect and defend democracy. The only territories we
hold are memorials like this one and graveyards where our heroes rest.
We in
America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars. It is better to be
here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea,
rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism
never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments
with an expansionist intent. But we try always to be prepared for peace,
prepared to deter aggression, prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms, and
yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation. In truth,
there is no reconciliation we would welcome more than a reconciliation with the
Soviet Union, so, together, we can lessen the risks of war, now and forever.
It's
fitting to remember here the great losses also suffered by the Russian people
during World War II. Twenty million perished, a terrible price that testifies
to all the world the necessity of ending war. I tell you from my heart that we
in the United States do not want war. We want to wipe from the face of the
earth the terrible weapons that man now has in his hands. And I tell you, we
are ready to seize that beachhead. We look for some sign from the Soviet Union
that they are willing to move forward, that they share our desire and love for
peace, and that they will give up the ways of conquest. There must be a
changing there that will allow us to turn our hope into action.
We
will pray forever that someday that changing will come. But for now,
particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each
other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it.
We're
bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and
beliefs. We're bound by reality. The strength of America's allies is vital to
the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued
freedom of Europe's democracies. We were with you then; we're with you now.
Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.
Here,
in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let
us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our
actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: "I will
not fail thee nor forsake thee."
Strengthened
by their courage and heartened by their value [valor] and borne by their
memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.
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