We're here to mark that d
ay in history when the Allied peoples joined inbattle to reclaim this
continent to liberty. For four long years, muchof Europe had been under
a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the
camps, millions cried out for liberation. Eu
rope wasenslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue. Here in Normandy therescue 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 sho
re 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 crackof rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June 1944, 225 Rangers j
umped off the British landing craft and ranto 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 o
f themightiest 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 thecliffs
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 agai
n. 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 thetop of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe.Two hundred and twenty-five came h
ere. After two days of fighting only ninety
could still bear arms.
Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that werethrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there.
These are the boys of Poin
te 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 putaside 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, faiththat they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beach
head 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 forconquest. 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 worthdying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of gove
rnment 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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