To commemorate the Allied invasion of Europe, which began 70 years ago today, one of my favorite speeches, delivered thirty years ago at Pointe du Hoc, Normandy, by Ronald Reagan. The text can be found in this Wall Street Journal article from yesterday, here. June 5 was the 10th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s death.
I cannot imagine what those young men thought and felt that June day in 1944, except that they had a mission assigned to them that they were honor bound to fulfill, that it would be difficult, and that they might not make it to the end of that day. I will do them the honor of always remembering what they did, and call them heroes.
I remember what my mother said about my older brother, who joined the Navy when he was 17, in 1943: “He left as a boy, and came home a man.”
Today we honor all of those men, many of them who left this earth those fateful days in June, 1944, and others who survived, but never forgot.
More:
D-Day Airborne and Beach Assault
D-Day as it happened: AP’s June 6, 1944 dispatch