Political Quotes

“I thought I would read part of this very moving speech. It starts midway in the speech and lays out the history of the brave men who participated in D-day landings, and in particular the Rangers. Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were first 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 a 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 compelled 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 they were doing what 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.…”