Text 20641, 108 rader
Skriven 2006-06-06 23:13:56 av EARL CROASMUN (1:275/311)
Ärende: Today
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A few words from Ronald Reagan, delivered twenty-two years ago today,
concerning events sixty-two years ago today.  And Charles was there to
hear it in person.
-----

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, 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 on 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.

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."

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.

We are bound today by what bound us forty years ago, the same loyalties,
traditions, and beliefs. We are 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 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.

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