Ronald Reagan, At Normandy

24 Replies to “Ronald Reagan, At Normandy”

1. Thank God the American’s won WWII!
   u know I’m being charged by the MB

2. “…What inspired you?”
   Whatever it was, there’s precious little of it left.

3. So much has changed in the intervening years that speech sounds like a century ago only 30 odd years.

4. Yes. They did.
   Of course it would have been over before they started if not for the British Empire and Commonwealth forces (i.e. including ours) refusing to lose, but if the Americans hadn’t help sustain us and then joined in, we would have at best stalemated the Nazis and we would not have been able to extract Western Europe from the new German empire.

5. He actually sounded like he believed what he was saying. Of course even though his job was making propaganda and training films for the U.S. military during that war, he was in the Army and would have felt that struggle really did matter to his country, to the world, and to his own life. It was normal for his generation to have personal connections to that part of history. Politicians of our time don’t have that so it is uncommon for them to have a serious grasp of these ideas.

6. Unfortunately ‘kids these days’ probably wouldn’t understand what he’s saying, it would just go over their heads.

7. When I hear our Prime Minister speak of Normandy, I hear a similar connection in his voice.

8. “Unfortunately ‘kids these days’ probably wouldn’t understand what he’s saying, it would just go over their heads.”
   Yeah, yer probably right about that but then…that’s what we are for…
   Are you equal to the challenge….
   They also serve……..

9. Yeti…BINGO.My two step daughters and the grand kiddies keep 4 graves here in Edmonton. Vets from WW2 and Korea.The aholes in council said they couldn’t do that. Heh. They were straightened out quite quickly.
   To you we pass the torch.

10. And the USSA can only pray for another Ronald Reagan.

11. A real leader who helped bring down a monstrous regime.
    Cameron in Britain makes excuses in our times for evildoers. To the Very bloody cult. That is making no excuses for trying to take over the World . Out of a sense of superiority.
    Times indeed have changed.

12. Yes, and it appears that it will have to get much worse before the people get fed up and turf the Neville Chamberlains from our governments and confront the enemy, here, and offshore.

13. “…it will have to get much worse before the people get fed up and turf the Neville Chamberlains from our governments…”
    Let me finish that sentence for you, Ken. 😉
    …and replace them with true warriors like Turdo le Deux.

14. Think Bama could do a speech that well with cue cards and no teleprompter?
    I don’t

15. One of the highlights of my otherwise mundane life was when I shook hands with Reagan back in 1978. At that time he was either running for or was indeed Governor of California.
    It’s a long story but suffice it to say he had a presence that one would admire and never forget.
    He was a true American hero.

16. Lots of “kids these days” in uniform, Sasquatch.

17. There is a sincerity there that is sadly lacking in the present POTUS. However, I think Barry might be the better actor.

18. I think you are right. Ronald Reagan could only play a role when given a script and time to rehearse, and then only for as long as a scene lasted.
    Barack Obama has been playing a fictional character – himself – every waking minute of his life for decades.

19. The Tooner;
    That be the case what script was Reagan following during the ‘Star Wars’ showdown with the Russians? When he rebuilt the US military? What script was he following when he threw the Commies out of the Screen Actors Guild? Reagan never followed Hollywood convention which embraced communism he fought it all his life. No script! Your suggestion is insulting.

20. CT, I’m sorry you misunderstood. Acting in movies was just a job Ronald Reagan did to make his living before he got into politics. He wasn’t following a script as you say, then, because he wasn’t acting – he was real. He believed in his country and his principles and conducted himself accordingly.
    Contrast Barack Obama – he never had a real job to earn his living before politics. Nothing he does is true, nothing is real, he is putting on an act all the time, there is no script he just makes himself up as he goes along.

21. That’s the way I read you too, Tooner. It is just that some people so revere The Great Communicator and so often saw him attacked by the media types, that they are a little touchy. We are all agreed!

22. I don’t think you’d could come by a much more powerful example of situational and visual symbolism than this presentation.
    Mr. Reagan was paying tribute to the D-Day participants, of course, but his simple and utterly morally clear dichotomy about the purposes of armies and invasions — they’re either for liberation or conquest — would have had a profound impact on the Cold War: this is a case of Ronald Reagan, before your very eyes, using the symbolism of the Normandy invasion to turn the screws on Soviet communism. He had a a rare ability to do that kind of thing. His argument reminds me of the old dichotomy about fences — you put up a fence either to keep something in or to keep something out. Pretty clear, eh? Oh, and by the way, here’s how WE behaved forty years ago…
    The elephant in the room about all this, of course (and which has not been mentioned), is that in comparison to President Reagan’s presentation, you’ll recall that at precisely the same moment in time, we had Mr. Trudeau, Sr. traipsing about on his self-appointed “peace” initiative, just weeks or days before he left office, undermining in some way, I suppose, Mr. Reagan’s efforts. Jarringly pathetic and embarrassing, actually.

23. And, CT, I appreciate your appreciation of President Reagan. You expressed it very well with those examples, they illustrate the quality of the man he really was when he wasn’t acting professionally to play the role assigned in the script of an entertainment. He knew which was which.

24. Tooner;
    Sorry about the misunderstanding.
    I never questioned Ronald Reagan’s faith or convictions. He obviously had an abiding faith in his country. I did, however, question some of his economic moves. I have to assume that since the USA’s finances were in much better shape back then that he thought they could make it work.