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Point
de Hoc
Ronald
Reagan
June
6, 1984
(The
40th anniversary of D-Day)
We're
here to mark that day in history when the
Allied peoples 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 -- 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.
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.
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