The following Op/Ed ran in today's Investor's Business Daily to commemorate President Reagan's 92nd Birthday. If you would like to send an email greeting to the President, please visit the link below.

Today, George W. Bush prosecutes a war against global terror. While this is a new chapter in our history, it is not without recent precedent. Our current conflict is a struggle Ronald Reagan similarly waged and thoroughly understood.

In Mr. Bush's chosen language and moral mission, we hear echoes of the strategy that fought and won the Cold War. In this way, the 43rd President is a true heir of the 40th.

We know that September 11th changed our national focus and redirected our foreign policy. As a result, our president has rallied America and been rewarded with the high trust of an anxious nation.

But no 9-11-like moment inspired President Reagan to challenge the Soviet Union's goal of extending its influence through the sheer force of will and war.

Indeed, nothing short of the experiences of a lifetime moved him to his recognition that good and evil were forever at cross-purposes - and that no alternative existed save for one side to win and the other to lose.

· Tasked to edit and produce training films during World War II, Reagan was forever changed by the images of Nazi concentration camps after they were liberated by American troops.

· In 1947, after becoming President of the Screen Actors Guild, Reagan witnessed what he called "Hollywood's biggest battle scene ever produced without benefit of stuntmen or trick photography." Communist sympathizers infiltrated and seized control of several motion picture unions and engineered a strike intended to shutter the studios. Violent clashes followed, Reagan received death threats and was compelled to carry a gun to protect his family.

· During the 1950s, Reagan began to receive reports from the AFL-CIO detailing the Soviet Union's use of slave labor to compete with Western productivity. This moved him to conclude that Communism not only violated America's founding principles of freedom, it promoted the spread of human bondage.

· In 1963, Reagan penned a speech he entitled, "Are Liberals Really Liberal?" Far ahead of its time, these remarks made specific mention of what he termed "the articulate advocates" who had mistakenly saw to it that "our foreign policy today is motivated by fear of the bomb, and is based on pure conjecture that maybe communism will mellow and recognize that our way is better." He wondered aloud how this could be rectified with the impending realization that "perhaps we'll learn how similar accommodation and appeasement are. The latter doesn't give you a choice between peace and war - only fight and surrender."

· In 1978, Reagan traveled for the first time to "Checkpoint Charlie," the infamous border crossing between East and West Berlin. In this, Reagan saw that the Berlin Wall not only separated a nation, but also cut off the people of Eastern Europe from the freedom and opportunity of the West. One suspects that when he demanded of Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" it was a challenge he'd been waiting a long time to deliver.

· In 1979, the year before his successful campaign for president, Reagan visited the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). There, he was shown maps detailing the U.S. cities targeted by Soviet missiles. When he asked how this would be prevented, he was told that Mutually Assured Destruction was the chosen policy to keep the peace. He utterly rejected that view, and developed his belief that if technology could create this global menace, technology could defend against it. This became the Strategic Defense Initiative that finally and forever swept the Soviets aside and rang down the curtain on the Cold War.

Just as President Bush has said the world is either "with us, or with the terrorists," President Reagan pledged no stale coexistence or diplomatic détente with the Evil Empire. He set the ship of state towards a necessary confrontation with tyranny, and unlike the experts, recognized that America's winning hand would play out a victorious end game.

Bringing to the White House a perspective shaped by his life's lessons, Ronald Reagan fused together the strategic necessity of American resolve with the moral imperative of opposing evil and advancing freedom around the world.

On this, his 92nd birthday, we recognize how Ronald Reagan confounded conventional wisdom, forever changed the global debate and paved a policy road that America is compelled to travel once again.

Mark Burson Executive Director The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation (805) 522-2977 http://www.reaganfoundation.org

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Thanks for posting this tribute to Ronald Reagan on his 92nd birthday. The greatest American President of the 20th century and one of the worlds great leaders of all time.

In 1980 when Reagan was elected President, the USSR was a military equal to the United States. The Cold War was still going strong and a huge threat to world peace and security.

Presidents from Truman to Carter fought a cold war of mainly appeasement and detente for 35 years until Reagan came along and took decisive action. His first term military build up and "Stratigic Defense Initiative", backed up with the resolution of "the" ultimate cold warrior, eventually lead to the break up of the USSR and the downfall of European communism. These are the basic facts that history will judge Ronald Reagan on. He gave us a tough foreign policy agenda and had the guts and determination to follow through with it.

On the home front Reagan inherited, from President Carter, the worst economic conditions America had seen since the Great Depression of the 1930`s. Under the leadership of President Reagan, interests rate came tumbling down, inflation was brought under control and almost 20 million new jobs were created in Reagan`s eight years in office. Reagan gave working American's real tax reform. Reagan's initial tax policy, brought down the top tax rates from 70% to 50%. Reagan signed the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which further reduced marginal tax rates. Again, through Reagan's leadership, the top rate was lowered from 50% to 28%, while adding an even lower, second rate of 15%. That was real tax reform!

Ronald Reagan won two presidential elections with overwhelming numbers in 1980 and 1984. The American people grew to admire and respect the leadership of President Ronald Reagan. Reagan's fiscal policies stabilized the economy, which led to the greatest economic expansion in history. Reagan got the military back on track and the world respected America once again.

The Thing About Heroes.

I have this thing about having heroes. But I guess most people do.
I would imagine that everyone needs them in their lives, it seems to me that it would be somewhat sad not to have a hero or two ... or more.
There was the Duke, first and always the Duke. There were characters out of the few books my father would find in a society that burned books and banned ideas, and from the old black and white movies still shown on TV. There was Ivanhoe and his love Rowena who taught me the meaning of chivalry; the roguish, smirking knave who accepted me into his band of Merry Men and will forever suspiciously resemble Errol Flynn and never, ever Kevin Costner; the hawkish, dark and brooding genius to whom everything was simply "elementary" to the amazement of the faithful Dr. Watson. These were the heroes of my youth.
But boys grow into men, and the heroes of childhood take their place in the shelves of youthful memories, tucked away in the far recesses of the mind. Old and well-worn friends of days gone by we see them for what they are, flights of fancy in a young boy's dreams.
When asked to name our heroes, and being good sons and daughters of good and loving parents, most of us will reply: my father, my mother or both, I think that's a given. It certainly holds true for me, I owe more than most to mine; they gave it all up to afford me the opportunity to grow up free, they paid for that opportunity with hard work and love. The young couple who started a new life for themselves and their two young children with a hundred dollars and a dream are my heroes, and they're older now, but not in my eyes. In my eyes, they are eternal and unchanging like a picture that will not fade with time.
That's another thing about heroes. When we think about them, they are the same today as they were the day they became larger than life. The football player who made the catch deemed to be immaculate, the Yankee man of iron who in the face of death proclaimed himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth, the guy who never left your side, even when the bullets were really flying; distinctive images forever burned into our minds, images which will never change.
I have lots of heroes, I guess. The writers and actors and musicians who have both influenced and delighted me by their talent, the athletes who have inspired and amazed me with their God-given abilities; the ordinary people who showed me the strength of the human spirit. We know these people as heroes too; the quiet black woman who refused to stand when seating was readily available, the man who stood down a column of iron monsters with nothing but paper grocery bags in his hands; the men and women in uniforms of every color who have given their lives in the defense of the country, and those who wear them today, ready to do the same. The teacher who refuses to believe that a child is unreachable, the doctors who leave their comfortable offices and fly into the heart of poverty in the name of humanity.
Most of all, I admire the visionaries. The people who dare to dream and tell us that dreams are achievable if we are willing to work hard and persevere. The people who envision a world were the sun is always rising on a better tomorrow, who see morning again after the darkest of nights. Let me tell you about one of my heroes. The only one that will ever come close to that place held by the man and woman who gave me life and liberty.
My hero was born in a humble home. That seems to be a prevailing theme running through the lives of heroes, childhood's which didn't telegraph the greatness to come. He played football and baseball and held summer jobs while growing up in a typical American home, in a typical American town.
This is the stuff heroes are made of, the stuff America is made of. Small towns and football games and Fourth of July picnics; summer forays to the local swimming hole, sweethearts' dances and Church bake sales. These are the towns that form American heroes, they kindle the fire that tempers American steel, and they give birth to giants.
If there's a word to describe this hero of mine, that word would have to be "giant." I close my eyes to picture him and he seems to tower above. He dominated and shone with the pristine light of the newly-born sun on a clear, spring morning. He stood on the edge of the dawn leading the way to a vision of a better America, and made me believe that what had always been the best about America still was, that we were what was best about America.
You see, he made me believe in myself. He made me believe that the vision of a shining city on a hill was not flight of fancy, but rather an achievable reality. He made me want to lead and not follow.
This giant, this hero of heroes awakened the dormant fire of traditional values in my heart. He set them ablaze with his vision, and with his words he conquered a nation. No one articulated the vision of a glorious future better than he did, I have never known a better communicator and may never know one again.
Some call him "the Gipper," some call him "Dutch," those closest to him call him Ronnie. They all love him as intensely. He is older now, and ravaged by cruel illnesses; they say that the great communicator is trapped in a vault of silence, and that he is weak and frail. But not in my eyes and not in my heart.
There, in my memory, Ronald Reagan stands tall and firm, one hand raised to the sky and one holding Nancy's; and with the Stars and Stripes flying proudly behind him, he tells me once more that "It's morning again in America" and by God, I believe him. He will always be the American Joshua who brought down the evil walls of an evil empire in the name of Freedom. He is still today, the man that gave wings to the dream of an America unchallenged during the darkest of times. He saw that rainbow shining down on that city on a hill and dared us to follow it, and behind him, we marched into the future unconcerned and unafraid.
He is today, as he will always be simply "Mr. President", and he is a hero to me. Eternal and unchanging like a picture that will not fade with time.
I guess that's the thing about heroes, time can't stand up to them.
Copyright Luis Gonzalez 2001

MIDI - DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING

Every now and then we find that a great leader comes along
One who has greatness that we celebrate in poetry and song
He grew up in the Midwest and he had learned his lessons well
But how far he would go nobody could really tell

His accomplishments were growing but he’s not one who would boast
He learned that a man’s character is what is valued most
And he’s led his life with an honor that we can admire

Ronald Reagan we love you…and you are loved around the world
Thanks to your vision flags of freedom everywhere have been unfurled
We will all raise up our glass, here’s a salute from one and all
Long live your legacy – The Man Who Brought Down the Wall

There’s a natural right of men…that right is all men shall live free
Because freedom makes each person all the best that he can be
One president knew that much better than anyone else

You’re loved by all

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