Ronald Reagan, thirty years ago today, and Charles was in the audience:   
      
      
      
   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.''   
      
   . . .   
      
   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.   
      
   . . .   
      
   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.   
      
   President Ronald Reagan - June 6, 1984   
      
   --- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Dada-1   
    * Origin: Prism bbs (1:261/38)