Posted on 03/02/2003 5:36:42 AM PST by kristinn
Shiver along with the D.C. Chapter, FReepers from across the country, other patriotic Americans and Iraqi exiles as C-SPAN broadcasts the Patriots Rally For America IV today at 1:05 p.m.
Recorded yesterday at the cold, fog-shrouded, snow-covered grounds of the Washington Monument, the rally held to support our troops, President Bush and the American policy on Iraq features former Rep. Bob Dornan, Aziz Al-Taee, Blanquita Cullum, John Armor, James Parmelee, Kevin Martin, Adam Ramey and yours truly.
Also featured are singers Cullen Martin, Stephanie Souders and, from Nashville, Lowell Shyette.
The program, if shown in it's entirety, should run three hours and fifteen minutes.
Get some hot chocolate ready, pop some popcorn, put on your red, white and blue sweaters and get ready to root for the home team: the men and women serving in our Armed Forces.
EAGLES UP !!!
I have never encountered you before today, and I haven't the foggiest notion why the people from the DC Chapter who have responded to your insults have been so (unnecessarily, IMO) NICE to you so far. But you have crossed the line by implying that they are not intelligent and didn't work hard. Who in the hell do you think you are?
Go piss up a rope, "Teri". That should entail a fair amount of "honest hardwork" for you.
Looking forward to it, 'pod.
You guys prove that "Citizens, not spectators" do make a difference.
There be the start of our Activism legacy.
PS. Connie is a good FRiend of FR.
I need to make an important correction here, 'pod.
Connie Hair, Republic and FreeTheHostages all handed out 3,000 flyers in the area aound the Pentagon. They were not prowling the E-Ring.
Ronald Reagan -- Pointe de Hoc, Normandy, June 6, 1984 (The 40th anniversary of D-Day) 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.
YES, zelig and I will be there! This one is close to home for us... we're trying to recruit friends and family members to go, too. I hope you can join us... although I realize it is a hike from NJ.
Besides you've self-promoted yourself waaay past me ;-).
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