Speech #6 – Vocal Variety

What Price Freedom?


225 Rangers landed in the mist of dawn, immersed in the muffled sound of bullets raining down resting deep into the sands around their feet, echoed by the sound of fellow soldiers falling to their knees. 

 

The Allies knew their mission -- to take out the enemy guns.  These men knew the war hinged on their success.  Looking up at the enemy perched on the chalk cliffs above, the Rangers shot rocket-propelled hooks attached to ropes and ladders over the edge, and started to climb.  The enemy dropped grenades and cut their ropes.  When one Ranger fell, another would take his place.  When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again.  They ascended -- shot back -- and held their footing.  The fear, exhaustion, and determination on the faces of these soldiers hinted at the terrors they have already endured.  Overcoming these tremendous odds -- one - by - one -- they advanced, and drove off the enemy.  Victory was within reach. 

 

225 arrived and after two days of fighting only 90 could still bear arms.  The 2nd Ranger Battalion experienced the worst ordeal of the Operation.  Almost all the senior officers had been killed or wounded.  Dazed, wounded, disorganized, the survivors regrouped and pressed on.  It took the initiative of junior and non-commissioned officers, along with ordinary privates, to turn the tide.  One of every two Rangers was killed.  The Americans suffered a total of 2,400 casualties in one day.  These were the heroes who helped end a war.

 

"'This is D-Day,' the BBC announced at 12 o'clock. 'This is the day.' The invasion has begun!... Is this really the beginning of the long-awaited liberation?  The liberation we've all talked so much about, which still seems too good, too much of a fairy tale ever to come true?... the best part of the invasion is that I have the feeling that friends are on the way.  Those terrible Germans have oppressed and threatened us for so long that the thought of friends and salvation means everything to us!" -- Anne Frank, diary entry, June 6, 1944

 

If these men had cowered behind the seawall and said “This war isn’t about me, I’m staying here, I’m not going to risk my life,” the landing would have failed at Omaha Beach.  Failure at Omaha Beach would have been catastrophic for the invasion, leaving a gap between the British and Canadian beaches that could have been exploited by the German’s heavy amour.

 

I am humbled by the realization of how much so many gave to the cause of freedom and to their fellow man.  I have a deep regard for the citizen soldier, for the men and women who went halfway around then world, not to conquer but to liberate.  When our forces marched into Germany, they came not to prey on a brave and defeated people, but to nurture the seeds of democracy, among those who yearned to be free again.

 

This generation understood that America's gift of democracy was an act unparalleled in the course of history. 

 

These men -- just barely men -- just embarking on manhood with grand dreams of what lies before them.  Dreams of a free world.  A world where his children  and his children’s children can live in freedom.  Some paid an ultimate price, but a price they were willing to pay, for that freedom.   

 

But are we truly free today?  How can we be free if we don’t know what freedom is?  How can we be free if we don’t know the history of freedom?  The price paid for that freedom?  Most graduating high school seniors -- some the very age as those brave soldiers -- don't know why we have a Bill of Rights.  They haven't a clue to why slaves were counted in the Constitution as only three-fifths of a person.  And they don’t know why these brave men of Omaha Beach paid the ultimate price for their freedom. 

 

Since this generation is very close to voting age or already have reached it one can only feel alarm that they know so little about their nation's history and express so little capacity to reflect on its meaning. 

 

This is alarming for everyone who cares about the future of our democracy.  Freedom doesn't work by itself.  It depends on active, informed citizens.  And that's who these kids are: our future citizens.

 

How do we communicate this responsibility to kids?  When our kids feel something is interesting and relevant to their lives, they are open and ready to learn.  The stories behind World War II are interesting and relevant, and it’s our job to present them that way.  It is our responsibility to first educate ourselves on the history of freedom and then take the action of teaching these stories to our children.  Our founding fathers understood that our system of democratic government came with no guarantees.  Not then, not in 1944, and not today.  They knew that the new republic would require active, informed citizens to preserve, protect, and defend it.

 

As President Reagan reminded us on the 40th anniversary of D-Day: “Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their valor, and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.  

 

Let us make a vow to our fallen soldiers.  Let us show them by our actions we understand what they died for.  Let our actions say to them that these things are worth dying for.  And by our actions teach this new generation of citizens the price paid for freedom.