Ronald Reagan was Talking to 2014 America at Pointe du Hoc

Many are watching this video today and remembering Ronald Reagan's speech at Normandy 30 years ago

If you have the time today, watch it.  If you don't have the time, make it.

Most remember The Great Communicator's words about the brave Rangers.  And they should.

But there is a message to us in this speech.  Reagan in 1984 was talking to America in 2014.  And we are not listening.

I just finished watching it, and I continue to sob like a child.  So many reasons to cry.

I cried thinking about the bravery, the innocence, the carnage, the hope, the righteousness.

I cried wondering if we still had it.

I cried thinking about my country and how it was in 1984--waking up from malaise, full of hope, led by a great Captain.

I cried thinking about where we are today.

I cried thinking about the message our Captain brought that day to Normandy, a message of purpose and leadership:  "We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars. It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent. But we try always to be prepared for peace, prepared to deter aggression, prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms, and yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation. In truth, there is no reconciliation we would welcome more than a reconciliation with the Soviet Union, so, together, we can lessen the risks of war, now and forever."

And I cried thinking about a country that is steadily turning from this sense of purpose and leadership.

It is time, friends.  It is time to recapture this purpose, to regain our footing, to re-establish our leadership and to resume our role.

The world needs a powerful and strong United States.  We must awake from our slumber, the slumber of excess and contentedness, of selfishness and unconcern.  We must recapture the zeal, and the hope, and the purpose, and the ambition that made our country great.  We must turn from a path of smallness, of garden-tending, of purposelessness, of provincialism.

We can do it.