D-day 65 Years Later

[Confluence Logansport]

Check out President Reagan's Speech at our Indy Star site:

http://tinyurl.com/reaganDday40

Remarks at a Ceremony Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the
Normandy Invasion, D-day

June 6, 1984

We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined
in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For 4 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 machineguns 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 2 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 fought -- 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 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. 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.

Thank you very much, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 1:20 p.m. at the site of the U.S. Ranger
Monument at Pointe du Hoc, France, where veterans of the Normandy
invasion had assembled for the ceremony.

Following his remarks, the President unveiled memorial plaques to the
2d and 5th Ranger Battalions. Then, escorted by Phil Rivers,
superintendent of the Normandy American Cemetery, the President and
Mrs. Reagan proceeded to the interior of the observation bunker. On
leaving the bunker, the President and Mrs. Reagan greeted each of the
veterans.

Other Allied countries represented at the ceremony by their heads of
state and government were: Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom,
Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands, King Olav V of Norway, King Baudouin
I of Belgium, Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg, and Prime Minister Pierre
Elliott Trudeau of Canada.