Posted on 06/06/2009 5:14:29 AM PDT by SE Mom
President Obama's public schedule for Saturday, June 6, 2009
ET/LT 0810 1410 The President & First Lady arrive American Cemetery
0820 1420 The President & First Lady tour the Visitors Center
0855 1455 President & three other leaders stand at overlook with two veterans
0910 1530 President Obama, Sarkozy, Brown & Harper participate in 65th Anniversary of DDay
(Excerpt) Read more at whitehouse.blogs.foxnews.com ...
Video of Reagan’s speech at Normandy in 1984
http://www.foxnews.com/search-results/m/22440409/words-from-normandy.htm
He’s going to apologize for WWII, isn’t he?
Will he construct a crescent out of rocks he just happened to find lying on the beach?
I am VERY glad that I have plans that take me away from the media all day today. I did watch him addressing the Mooslimbs; but, the prospect of seeing him on this hallowed ground is just too much.
Will read later. Thanks to those who can stomach it.
Obama - “D-Day was a war of choice”
I know- it will not be easy to watch.
It helps to have others with whom to watch.
It does bring some comfort.
My uncle landed at Utah and like so many of us- I was weaned on WW II stories.
ugh
Showing Michelle and Barry walking up to the visitor’s center now...
No doubt he’ll highlight the enormous contributions made by muzzies at the D-Day landing.....
Michelle walks like she has a bad case of indigestion.
She walks like a man who put on ladies shoes for the first time.
I meant to add Reagan’s speech in the post above with the link- here is the text:
We’re here to mark that day in history when the Allied peoples joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue. Here in Normandy the rescue began. Here the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.
We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June 1944, 225 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.
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. 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’...
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.
Ronald Reagan, 6 June 1984, Normandy
The captain said to him as they came closer "Mike, get in the back and make sure everyone gets off this boat." So he did.
A few minutes later, the steel ramp of the LST comes down and they are decimated by German machine gun fire; the captain and many others were killed immediately. Mike became the unit commander and they all hit the beach. He and his men were pinned down by machine gun fire for 2 days and eventually fought their way off the beach.
He never wanted to speak of the war but because of my interest and the relationship we had he eventually told me a bit of what went on (he went through the Battle of the Bulge and was captured and escaped). Rest his brave soul.
“It helps to have others with whom to watch.”
I haven’t the slightest idea what the Socialist is going to say, but I do know he better refer to the bad guys as Nazis. He MUST thank and continue to be thankful for the bravery of every soldier who put his life on the line for OUR FREEDOM.
Ugh...Max Cleland is there. Why?
It’s probably too much to wish for, maybe a few restored German Stuka dive bombers to make an appearance, maybe a fly over the Usurper’s position, you know, just for (ahem) ‘realism’?
(”Mein GOTT, Siegfried!!! I *know* that some dumbkoff loaded live munitions on your plane, but WHY did you hit der ‘release’ lever?!?! Do you KNOW der papervork ve will haff to fill OUT now?!?!?”)
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