Ronald Reagan lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, also called Tomb of the Unknowns.
In a flashback to 1986, Ronald Reagan, 40th president of the United States, told a listening America on Memorial Day to remember the veterans – to remember the “fallen heroes” who gave so much to ensure the freedoms of this country, and that while beach trips and cookouts were great, the true meaning of the day was much more somber.
“Today is the day we put aside to remember fallen heroes and to pray that no heroes will ever have to die for us again,” he said, in his May 26 address at Arlington National Cemetery. “It’s a day of thanks for the valor of others, a day to remember the splendor of America and those of her children who rest in this cemetery and others. It’s a day to be with the family and remember.”
He went on, speaking of the parades to come.
“I was thinking this morning that across the country, children and their parents will be going to the town parade and the young ones will sit on the sidewalks and wave their flags as the band goes by. Later, maybe, they’ll have a cookout or a day at the beach. And that’s good, because today is a day to be with the family and to remember,” Reagan said then.
But it’s also a day for more, he said.
“Here in Arlington rests a sharecropper’s son who became a hero to a lonely people. Joe Louis came from nowhere,” Reagan said, “but he knew how to fight. And he galvanized a nation in the days after Pearl Harbor when he put on the uniform of his country and said, ‘I know we’ll win because we’re on God’s side.’ Audie Murphy is here, Audie Murphy of the wild, wild courage. For what else would you call it when a man bounds to the top of a disabled tank, stops an enemy advance, saves lives, and rallies his men, and all of it single-handedly. When he radioed for artillery support and was asked how close the enemy was to his position, he said, ‘Wait a minute and I’ll let you speak to them.’”
Reagan reminded of others of courage who died serving their nation – Oliver Wendell Holmes, “the great jurist and fighter for the right,” and Michael Smith and Dick Scobee, “of the space shuttle Challenger,” and other “great explorers with names like Grissom and Chaffee.”
And then he said: “All of these men were different, but they shared this in common: They loved America very much. There was nothing they wouldn’t do for her. And they loved with the sureness of the young.”
Reagan then turned to the veterans of Vietnam, “quite a group, the boys of Vietnam – boys who fought a terrible and vicious war without enough support from home, boys who were dodging bullets while we debated the efficacy of the battle.”
And he spoke of how it was very often the poor of America who fought in Vietnam, the “unpampered boys of the working class who picked up the rifles and went on the march.”
Of them, he said: “They learned not to rely on us. They learned to rely on each other.”
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And his conclusion?
Reagan reminded: “And we owe them something, those boys. We owe them first a promise: That just as they did not forget their missing comrades, neither, ever, will we. And there are other promises. We must always remember that peace is a fragile thing that needs constant vigilance. We owe them a promise to look at the world with a steady gaze and, perhaps, a resigned toughness, knowing that we have adversaries in the world and challenges and the only way to meet them and maintain the peace is by staying strong. … If we really care about peace, we must stay strong. If we really care about peace, we must, through our strength, demonstrate our unwillingness to accept an ending of the peace. … The rest of my contribution is to leave this great place to its peace, a peace it has earned. Thank all of you, and God bless you, and have a day full of memories.”
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2016/05/30/reagan-on-americas-fallen-they-stood-for-something/
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