Monday, February 11, 2008

I remember

Twenty four years ago, come June 6, 2008, marks President Ronald Reagan's speech at Omaha Beach, in Normandy, France. The occasion was the fortieth anniversary of a day when thousands of young Americans landed on that beach with a noble purpose before them---ending Nazi domination of the European continent. President Reagan was profuse in recalling the memory of Private First Class Peter Robert Vanatta's exploits on that day so long ago. PFC Vanatta survived the battle and the war. However, he was unable to return to pay homage to fallen buddies, for he had passed away some months earlier due to illness.

In his place was his daughter, who in keeping with her fathers memory, remembered her father saying, "Some day I'll go back there." He never did. His daughter, Lisa, with the strong bonds of kinship guiding her, vowed to go to Omaha Beach. She would do as she knew her father would do, and place flowers at the grave sites, and pause in humble reflection. Why is this so significant today, you may ask? The reason is simple.

Today, February 11, 2008, we were treated to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's telling us that the "Surge strategy in Iraq" was a failure! This coming from the same woman who did everything within her legislative power to guarantee such a failure. This coming from the same woman who obviously sympathizes with Mayor Tom Bates of Berkely, California. This man and his city council brethren, now famously depicted in his "Code Pink" beret, are very busy with city business trying to zone the US Marine Corps recruiting office out of town, and out of sight. All this, I presume to be in the name of protecting the city, and it's residents, from the foreign invaders dressed in blue and red. Should we say,"Only in California these days"? Try to envision Ms. Pelosi giving the same speech as President Reagan did. My apologies to the late President for linking her to him in the same sentence.

The last words of President Reagan's speech that day some almost twenty fours ago, go like this:

"We will always be prepared, so we may always be free."...apparently not, in Berkeley, California.

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