President Reagan's D-Day 40th Anniversary Speech

On June 6, 1984, President Ronald Reagan gave a speech commemorating the 40th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. He was in France, on the site of the invasion.

President Reagan was not afraid to invoke the name of God. He was not ashamed of our past. In his speech he said:

"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."

And he recalled the words of Col. Wolverton to his parachute troops as he asked them to kneel in prayer with him:

"Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we're about to do."

Reagan recalled General Ridgway's faith:

"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.'"

Read Reagan's entire speech here:

President Reagan's D-Day 40th anniversary speech

See also this previous post:

President Franklin D. Roosevelt - D-Day Prayer