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 twenty-five 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.
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 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 4:00 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 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."
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. 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.
SOURCE: Ronald
Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, Accessed June 6, 2014
