Omaha Beach, Normandy.All photos by Rob, September 2004
I wonder how many Americans woke up this morning, saw today's date, and thought of something other than Wednesday.
How many Americans saw the date--June 6--and remembered D-Day?
So much has changed in the 63 years since Operation Overlord began the final push for the liberation of Europe. So much has changed in America, and in Americans.
But in 1944, young Americans, and thousands of our allies, lept into an uncertain darkness, and began to push back a curtain of evil enveloping Europe.
A few days ago, one of my closet friends (yes, that's you Cesar) sent me an email. Cesar is a deep thinker, and a man concerned about the future of our country, and one who honors its past. Cesar is a proud American, but also a proud Cuban American--his family fled Cuba as a familiar darkness enveloped their their country. And for that reason, I believe, to Cesar the cause of liberty is especially personal, and so deeply felt.
I'd like to share Cesar's email, and let the words of two great American leaders speak directly to you. As I read what follows, my heart almost aches for men and women of such character to lead our country now. We saw that kind of leadership in the weeks and months after September 11, and we all remember the unity that came with it. As a nation, we need that feeling now, more than ever.
What follows is a radio address delivered on June 7, 1944, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked his fellow Americans to join him in prayer for American troops. Roosevelt's prayer is followed by what is perhaps President Reagan's most famous and compelling speech -- the Boys of Pointe du Hoc, delivered in Normandy, France, on June 6, 1984.
In September 2004, I visited Normandy. I don't know that I have ever been so in awe. To stand at Pointe du Hoc, to walk the rows of white crosses at the American cemetery, to touch the sands of Omaha Beach, and imagine the hell our countrymen faced in order to safeguard liberty--not just American liberty--is so incalculable as to defy words. While the guns went silent 63 years ago, American courage and valor echo across Normandy today.
But President Reagan made it real. 63 years later, American soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors, face that same hell in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, and I wonder, will an American President stand before the world, and recall with such grace, our sacrifices?
Rob in the American Cemetery, Normandy.
In sending this prayer and remembrance to me, Cesar wrote "on the eve of the anniversary of what may very well be the most important date in the 20th Century, I thought I'd share this with you – the conflict may be in a different place, but ageless darkness knows no strange corners – the words of Presidents Roosevelt and Reagan are as pertinent today as they were decades ago, as we back home think of you and your brothers..."
How blessed I am to have friends and family and countrymen who remember, and who understand how important it is to us who are here in the fight, to know that we are more than a slogan...that we are remembered and honored. God bless you all.
A soldier from Pennsylvania, died June 6, 1944
My fellow Americans:
Last night when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome I knew at that moment the troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far. And so in this poignant hour I ask you to join with me in prayer.
Almighty God, our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor. A struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.
They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard, for the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces, success may not come with rushing speed.But we shall return again and again. And we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph. They will be. ...night and day without rest until the victory. ...The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men’s souls will be shaken with the violences of war. For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace.
They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise and tolerance and good will among all thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home. Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them Thy heroic servants into Thy Kingdom.
And for us at home, fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them, Help us almighty God to rededicate ourselves to renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.
Many have urged that I call this nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long, the desire is great,I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips invoking thy help to our efforts.
Give us strength too. Strengthen our daily tasks. Redouble the contributions we make in the physical and material support of our armed forces.
Let our hearts be stout to wait out the long travail.To bear sorrows that may come. To impart our courage to our sons wheresoever they may be. And, O Lord, give us faith, Give us faith in Thee, faith in our sons, faith in each other, faith in our
united crusade.
Let not the keenness of our spirits ever be dull. Let not the impact of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moments, let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose. With Thy blessing we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy.
Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace, a peace invulnerable to the [unintelligible] of unworthy men, and a peace that will let all men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest fight.
Thy will be done, Almighty God. Amen.
--Franklin Delano Roosevelt, June 7, 1944
Audio recording transcribed from
http://www.archive.org/download/WWII_News_1944/1944-06-06_2200_CBS_FDR_D-Day_Prayer.mp3,
And, forty years later, the words of the OTHER of the two greatest Presidents of the 20
th Century:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/mp3clips/politicalspeeches/ronaldrreagandday4534592.mp3We’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.
View from Omaha Beach looking toward Pointe du Hoc.
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 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 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, Normandy, France, June 6, 1984.
Rob overlooking Pointe du Hoc, Normandy.
The steel sculpture to the left of the dome is meant to resemble the Minaret of Samarra. The Minaret of Samarra was one of the most ancient and famous sites in Islamic architecture and was patterned after the ziggurats of ancient Mesopotamia. The sculpture at the Monument to the Unknown Soldier is entirely covered with Murano glass panels fixed on stainless steel arms which light up at night in the national colors of Iraq (White, Green, Red and Black). Before the 2003 war, a spotlight shone skyward from the central tube. 
