Remembering D-Day with Ike and Reagan

By Paul G. Kengor

Editor’s note: This piece first appeared at The American Spectator on June 6, 2011.

For me, Memorial Day happens twice within a week. The first, the official holiday at the end of May, is quickly reinforced a week later, every June 6: D-Day.

Of all the wartime anniversaries, none strike me quite like D-Day — the invasion of Normandy, the liberation of France, the final push to defeat Nazi Germany. It was June 6, 1944, a date that sticks like December 7, like July 4, like September 11. The mix of extreme sorrow and triumph has been unforgettably replicated on film by Steven Spielberg in the stunning opening of Saving Private Ryan.

What must it have been like to be among those first waves at the beaches? Indescribable, simply indescribable.

When I think of D-Day, I always think of two presidents, neither of which were president at the time: Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. What they had to say about the event was profound.

President Eisenhower's Farewell Address

On this date in 1961, President Eisenhower bade farewell after a half century of service to the country.  As our nation faces bankruptcy for playing policeman, banker and Santa Claus to the world for the past half century, his warning has become a clarion call.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower's D-Day Speech