President Reagan Omaha Beach 1984 Speech

"We stand today at a place of battle, one that 40 years ago saw and felt the worst of war. Men bled and died here for a few feet of - or inches of sand, as bullets and shellfire cut through their ranks. About them, General Omar Bradley later said, "Every man who set foot on Omaha Beach that day was a hero." Some who survived the battle of June 6, 1944, are here today.

Others who hoped to return never did. "Someday, Lis, I'll go back," said Private First Class Peter Robert Zannata, of the 37th Engineer Combat Battalion, and first assault wave to hit Omaha Beach. "I'll go back, and I'll see it all again. I'll see the beach, the barricades, and the graves." Those words of Private Zanatta come to us from his daughter, Lisa Zanatta Henn, in a heart-rending story about the event her father spoke of so often. "In his words, the Normandy invasion would change his life forever," she said. She tells some of his stories of World War II but says of her father, "the story to end all stories was D-Day." "He made me feel the fear of being on the boat waiting to land.

I can smell the ocean and feel the sea sickness. I can see the looks on his fellow soldiers' faces-the fear, the anguish, the uncertainty of what lay ahead. And when they landed, I can feel the strength and courage of the men who took those first steps through the tide to what must have surely looked like instant death." Private Zannata's daughter wrote to me, "I don't know how or why I can feel this emptiness, this fear, or this determination, but I do.

Maybe it's the bond I had with my father. All I know is that it brings tears to my eyes to think about my father as a 20-year old boy having to face that beach." The anniversary of D-Day was always special to her family. And like all the families of those who went to war, she describes how she came to realize her own father's survival was a miracle: "So many men died. I know that my father watched many of his friends be killed. I know that he must have died inside a little each time. But his explanation to me was, `You did what you had to do, and you kept on going." When men like Private Zannata and all our Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy 40 years ago they came not as conquerors, but as liberators.

When these troops swept across the French countryside and into the forests of Belgium and Luxembourg they came not to take, but to return what had been wrongfully seized. When our forces marched into Germany they came not to prey on a brave and defeated people, but to nurture the seeds of democracy among those who yearned to bee free again. We salute them today. But, Mr. President [Francois Mitterand of France], we also salute those who, like yourself, were already engaging the enemy inside your beloved country-the French Resistance. Your valiant struggle for France did so much to cripple the enemy and spur the advance of the armies of liberation.

The French Forces of the Interior will forever personify courage and national spirit. They will be a timeless inspiration to all who are free and to all who would be free. Today, in their memory, and for all who fought here, we celebrate the triumph of democracy. We reaffirm the unity of democratic people who fought a war and then joined with the vanquished in a firm resolve to keep the peace. From a terrible war we learned that unity made us invincible; now, in peace, that same unity makes us secure. We sought to bring all freedom-loving nations together in a community dedicated to the defense and preservation of our sacred values.

Our alliance, forged in the crucible of war, tempered and shaped by the realities of the post-war world, has succeeded. In Europe, the threat has been contained, the peace has been kept. Today, the living here assembled-officials, veterans, citizens-are a tribute to what was achieved here 40 years ago. This land is secure. We are free. These things are worth fighting and dying for. Lisa Zannata Henn began her story by quoting her father, who promised that he would return to Normandy. She ended with a promise to her father, who died 8 years ago of cancer: "I'm going there, Dad, and I'll see the beaches and the barricades and the monuments. I'll see the graves, and I'll put flowers there just like you wanted to do. I'll never forget what you went through, Dad, nor will I let any one else forget.

And, Dad, I'll always be proud." Through the words of his loving daughter, who is here with us today, a D-Day veteran has shown us the meaning of this day far better than any President can. It is enough to say about Private Zannata and all the men of honor and courage who fought beside him four decades ago: We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free. Thank you.

Agreed. Both excellent, but the Ponte Du Hoc speech somehow is more deeply felt, more powerful...more apt to today's sense of spirit.

I like a Washington Times reminiscence of this, by Peter Roff, in its memorial after Reagan's passage, titled A Light Extinguished

Here is clip thereto for posterity in case the link fails:

The Peter Principles: A light extinguished
By Peter Roff
UPI Senior Political Analyst
Washington, DC, Jun. 5 (UPI) -- The memory and accomplishments of those whom broadcaster Tom Brokaw dubbed "the Greatest Generation," are very much in mind these days. Just one week ago, the United States dedicated a memorial on the National Mall in their honor, just before the 60th anniversary of D-Day, the beginning of the liberation of Europe.
Ronald Reagan, who died Saturday at the age of 93, never forgot that struggle, never forgot how the world's democracies were imperiled by regimes that drew their power from tyranny and how that unnecessary struggle came to be.
Twenty years ago, at ceremonies marking the 40th anniversary of D-Day, Reagan gave what may be his most enduring speech, setting down plainly and simply what it all meant.
"These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc," Reagan said to the surviving crowd of old men, some infirm, some still hampered by injuries sustained in that battle and that long ago war. "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."
In his own way, Reagan, as leader of the Republican Party, leader of the nation and leader of the free world, took his own cliffs, helped free several continents and helped end a war.
There were many who loved Reagan for what he was and what he represented and there were many who hated him for the same reasons. He always found a way to remind us that the United States' best days were yet to come, even when it seemed they were long past. Reagan represented the United States at its best, with an infectious optimism that let everyone know that things would turn out okay because American was a special place, full of remarkable people and founded on the ideal that all mankind is, simply by virtue of its creation, equal.
At a time when many counseled compromise with the Soviet Union as it marched down the road to world domination, Reagan said "No." To him, Communism was not just a different political system; it was an evil thing that needed to be stamped out if liberty and humanity were to endure.
At a time when there were many who, at home and abroad, believed the United States, because of its economic, military and cultural power was an force for ill, Reagan strode across the world stage, a colossal figure, a giant in a time of other giants, to set out the truth as he saw it and to unashamedly pursue that truth.
Historians writing in a future age will no doubt praise Reagan for all that he accomplished and all that he set in motion. No other figure, say perhaps Winston Churchill, did so much in the 20th century to shape the early stages of the 21st. Under his leadership, the United States restarted the engine of its prosperity, creating 20 million jobs, 7 million small businesses, checked inflation, sparked record growth in the U.S. economy and spawned a worldwide boom that carried forward well beyond his presidency.
Throughout Europe, throughout Central America and into South America, Asia and Africa, there are people who today live free because Reagan believed that freedom could triumph over tyranny and because he had the courage to carry the battle for liberty forward, unbowed if bloody by partisan critics.
What Reagan said at Pointe du Hoc in 1984 is worth repeating as we mourn his passing. "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, he said, "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 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."
On that momentous day, Reagan recalled the words of a poem by Stephen Spender, telling "the boys of Pointe du Hoc," that they were men who in their "lives fought for life ... and left the vivid air signed with your honor." And today, as he has been called home to glory, the same should be said of him.
-- (The Peter Principles explores issues in national and local politics, the American culture and the media. It is written by Peter Roff, UPI political analyst and 20-year veteran of the Washington scene.)

my favorite part of the point du hoc speech:
(and something the liberals will never understand)

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.

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