"These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc" (Reagan speech at Normandy, June 6 1984)

Remarks at the U.S. Ranger Monument Pointe du Hoc, France June 6, 1984 One of two speeches commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the D-Day Invasion, this speech was delivered at the site of the U.S. Ranger Monument at Pointe du Hoc, France, where veterans of the Normandy Invasion, and others, had assembled for the ceremony. Later during the day, President Reagan spoke at Omaha Beach, France. 1,988 words.

We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies 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 40 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--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 90 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.''

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 rollcall 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 thought--or felt in their hearts, though they couldn't know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4 a.m., 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. Soviet troops that came to the center of this continent did not leave when peace came. They're still there, uninvited, unwanted, unyielding, almost 40 years after the war. Because of this, Allied forces still stand on this continent. Today, as 40 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: 20 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 some day 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 are 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 are 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, heartened by their value [valor], and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

One thing about Reagan, He rarely celebrated his own successes; rather, he highlighted the successes of others. This is obvious in his two 1984 D-Day speeches.

Reagan reminds me of the leader of the Mayflower, John Bradford. He was elected repeatedly to lead Plymouth Plantation. He always wrote about what the others in the group did for the colony during their first year in the New World when so many died. Bradford's book is called Of Plymouth Plantation. He was a real leader.

Reagan had a sign on his desk that said "there is nothing you can't achieve if you are willing to give others the credit."

That's really the sign of a great leader.

Reagan gave Gorbachev the credit for taking down the wall.

Now, Reagan is going to be buried near the piece of the wall that Garbachev gave him.

I first encountered that unique, magnanimous leadership style in Marcus Aurelius: in private works, like Meditations, he would happily name the persons whom influenced him to become a better man, and praise by name people who worked hard and well for him.

But if someone had crossed him, or had done him a disservice, or was a generally bad person, he didn't NAME the person but referred to him entirely via pronouns.

The most directed damning I seen by him was "Hippocrates died from vermin [disease], Socrates was kill by vermin of another sort [Meletus and the other two accusers]."

It's remarkable to me that I can't think of even one liberal leader who behaves so civilly.

Reagan's Legacy

One thing about President Reagan was that he was rarely sarcastic. I teach 10th grade, and that is a very sarcastic age. I like to point out to the kids what the character Gene says in the novel Separate Peace, "It was my sarcastic summer."

Gene is so envious of his friend Finny that he makes Finny fall out of a tree. Ultimately the opimistic Finny dies.

The novel is really on the same theme as The Iliad, "the wrath of Achilleus (Gene) and its devastation." Achilleus is envious because he must give back his prize and doesn't get "the credit" for being the best warrior. He belittles King Agamemnon, the Commander-in Chief for the Greeks. Achilleus isn't a team player; he thinks only of himself, not the goal of the war.

Gene, like the envious Achilleus, believed that his friend Finny had cheated him of his status as the best student in the school.

"Sarcasm is the refuge of the weak" I tell the kids. People who are sarcastic just belittle what the people who are positive achieve. I tell them that it is normal to be sarcastic in the 10th grade, but that by the time they are older they will notice that they don't need the sarcastic people around. They aren't team players. They don't lead, but just tear down other people's goals and aspirations.

We also read Shakespeare's The Tempest. The two bad guys in that story deposed a duke and tried to kill a king; these villians are full of sarcasm for another character Gonzalo, who is always very positive and optimistic. When they are on a desert island, Gonzalo believes he is in paradise, but the sarcastic ones believe they are in Hell. Gonzalo sees a garden; the courtiers see weeds.

That island in Shakespeare's Tempest could be America. The sarcastic ones always are in Hell. The optimistic positive ones are like Ronald Reagan; like Gonzalo, they believe the best is yet to come.

I think President Bush should "win one for the Gipper." He should have the courage to say that America stands for democracy in the Middle East. He should not give in to the sarcastic and pessimistic people who believe that people in the Middle East aren't ready for democracy. Those people in the Middle East are so sarcastic and negative and paranoid. They have turned the Garden of Eden into a Hell. What they need is optimism and democracy. It will take time. There will continue to be the terrorists with their hate-fulled ideology, their poisonous sarcasm and murder of real leaders; but democracy will still take root there, and the weeds of sarcasm will eventually be choked out.

President Reagan had a sign on his desk that said, "There is nothing you can't achieve if you are willing to give other people the credit." This was also the attitude of the man who lead the Pilgims on the Mayflower and became the governor of the Plymouth Colony, John Bradford. In his book, Of Plymouth Plantation, Bradford gave all the credit to the people around him. He also had a good relationship with the Indians.

Reagan was the same. He gave the communist Gorbachev the credit for taking down the Berlin Wall. Gorbachev gave Reagan a piece of this wall for his library, and now Reagan will be buried near this wall. That's quite an epitaph for both of these men.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.