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Ronald Reagan:
Remarks on the 40th Anniversary of DDay

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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
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, two
hundred and twentyfive
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.

Transcription by
Michael
E. Eidenmuller. Property
of AmericanRhetoric.com. . Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.
Page
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AmericanRhetoric.com

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
twentyfive
came here. After two days of fighting, only ninety could still bear arms.

And 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. And 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 roll call 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 selfpreservation
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.

Transcription by
Michael
E. Eidenmuller. Property
of AmericanRhetoric.com. . Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.
Page
2

AmericanRhetoric.com

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 fought or
felt in their hearts, though they couldn't
know
in fact, that
in Georgia they were filling the churches at
4:00 am. 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 Dday.
their rockhard
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. The Soviet
troops that came
to the center of this continent did not
leave when peace came. They're still
there, uninvited,
unwanted, unyielding, almost
forty years after the war. Because of this, allied forces still
stand on this continent. Today, as forty 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.

Transcription by
Michael
E. Eidenmuller. Property
of AmericanRhetoric.com. . Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.
Page
3

AmericanRhetoric.com

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. Twenty 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 someday 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're 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're 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 and heartened by their value [valor] and borne by their
memory, let
us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

Thank you very much, and God bless you all.

Transcription by
Michael
E. Eidenmuller. Property
of AmericanRhetoric.com. . Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.
Page
4