[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 68 (Thursday, May 26, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 26, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  1730
 
                         FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Fingerhut). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of February 11, 1994, and May 23, 1994, the gentleman 
from California [Mr. Dornan] is recognized for 60 minutes as the 
designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, we are going on a district work break, what 
is called the Memorial recess. During the upcoming week, the largest 
congressional contingent that I can recall will be commemorating and 
honoring an important day in history, that day being June 6, 1944, D-
Day. This large delegation is going to Europe and will visit Utah 
Beach, Omaha Beach. Some of America's World War II veterans who saw the 
fire of combat during that amazing period of history are going to speak 
as are Canadian and British veterans.
  I would like to share the following with C-SPAN's audience of 1.5 
million.
  I would like to use my imagination here for a minute and tell you, 
Mr. Speaker pro tempore, what I would have done today were I the 
Speaker. I would have set the scene for this Memorial Day recess. Most 
of our Members from both sides of the aisle have been invited to 
Memorial Day ceremonies at graveyards all over the country, 
particularly to beautiful Federal graveyards like Sautelle in west Los 
Angeles or Arlington. They have been invited to speak, to pause again 
for the men and women who have given the full measure of devotion, to 
use Lincoln's beautiful, poetic expression, ``dying for your friends 
and your country.'' I would like to tell you what I would have done 
were I the Speaker.
  I think I would have taken an hour from today's proceedings to 
commemorate D-Day. We did this once on Flag Day, led by Congressman 
Risenhoover of Oklahoma. We filled this Chamber with potted plants. I 
mean potted plants all over the place. Probably the Speaker would not 
remember this, but we had June Carter and Johnny Cash, her handsome 
husband, come to the well. Full Chamber, we invited all the staff on 
the floor and some of the Senate staff came over. We did a tribute to 
the American flag. This must have been 1978 or 1979, Jimmy Carter was 
President.
  I thought, well, this is probably what we are going to do in the '90s 
as we go through the 50th anniversaries of all of these great momentous 
days that I remember vividly even though I was only 8 to 12 years of 
age. I thought we would do it for Pearl Harbor, obviously Victory in 
Europe day, Harry Truman's birthday, May 8, that we would do it for 
Victory in Japan Day and we would do it on September 2, the signing of 
the Japanese unconditional surrender on the deck of the U.S.S. 
Missouri. I thought we would go through all these days.
  Then we came to the 75th anniversary of World War I's ending, on that 
day in 1918 my father, Harry Joseph Dornan, was in the trenches of 
France somewhere between Argonne and Chateau Thierry. When the 75th 
Anniversary of that 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 
passed here on Capitol Hill in 1993, nothing happened. And of course, 
the 75th anniversary is the last one that most veterans celebrate. 
Nobody is around for the 100th.
  Here we were not memorializing or commemorating in this Chamber any 
of the 50th anniversaries of the days of World War II and the 75th 
anniversary of World War I. And I though, what are we going to do for 
D-Day? Here we are, we have done nothing.
  If we had shut this House down, we would not have needed a great 
singer like Johnny Cash, we could have had our own heroes here, Tom 
Bevill, Sam Gibbons, we could have invited Strom Thurmond from the 
other body to commemorate this great day, which will be passing while 
we are in recess. We would have done this to remind our pages and every 
other young boy or girl, young man or woman across this country why it 
is important to remember great historical days. We must remember in 
order to pass on that legacy, and that torch off to the next 
generation. When we ask young people to dare to do great things--to do 
an extra bit of homework, not to sleep with that fellow classmate, not 
to drink that can of beer and then smash head-on into some van filled 
with a family, not to cheat on that exam--we must have exemples of 
greatness for them to follow. We should ask young men and women to make 
this a stronger country than we gave to them or that our parents and 
grandparents gave to us. We have to be able to talk about uplifting 
moments in history when people died for freedom, died for their 
country.
  Bob Michel was just telling me--he hit the beach on D-Day plus 4--
that it moved him when he read Eisenhower's words. I told him I was 
going to reread the order of the day from the supreme headquarters 
allied expeditionary force, Eisenhower's stunning words to the invasion 
force. Our Republican leader said, ``I just reread them yesterday, Bob, 
and it struck me that he used the term `United Nations,' not `the 
United Nations,' but `United Nations.''' Even then the term had come 
into usage. We had not formally organized the body, which happened at 
San Francisco a year and some months later, but the term was in usage. 
It was the Axis Powers versus the United Nations of the allies.

  I stand here stunned today that we are going to take this break with 
no mention of the breakout at Anzio 50 years ago this week, no mention 
of the liberation of one of the most beautiful cities ever on the face 
of the Earth. It had seen in its ugly pagan days the slaughtering of 
Christians and now the headquarters of one of the world's great 
Christian faiths, my Catholic faith, Vatican City, Rome. Eternal Rome, 
I believe it is the most romantic city on the face of the Earth.
  We liberated it from the heel of Mussolini's blackshirt Fascists on 
June 4, 50 years ago, 2 days before D-Day. As I have often said, all 
the men who died on the road from Salerno and Anzio fighting for the 
liberation of Rome, they were eclipsed by the cataclysmic events on D-
Day, June 6. But these two great days in history--the liberation of 
Rome and the establishment of a beachhead at Normandy--and not a word 
is spoken in this House except a few 1-minutes. I thought maybe I would 
be able to organize a special 1 hour when we get back to tell of some 
of our experiences, walking--again, to quote Lincoln speaking of the 
Gettysburg battlefield--``this hallowed ground.'' There is nothing we 
can do to pay it any more respect or devotion than was done by the 
blood of the young men that died there.
  Maybe we will bring back some hallowed memories of those beaches 
along that gorgeous Normandy French area.
  I took one of my daughters, Kathleen, to Ste. Mere-Eglise. Kathy 
loves history. She says I passed on my wanderlust to her. She wants to 
visit every country in the world, which is the dream of anybody who 
loves all the diverse countries in the world.
  I took her to Ste. Mere-Eglise back in 1982, and we went looking of 
course for the church steeple where private 1st class airborne 
paratrooper John Steel had come down, his chute caught on the very 
spire of the church. He hung there pretending he was dead. The trees 
surrounding the church were filled with bodies of young Americans who 
were truly dead.
  We found a lady, still young, younger than I am now, who had been a 
young girl in 1944. Her father owned a butcher's shop, and she was 
still in that building. She spoke beautiful English with a wonderful 
French accent. She took us out on the street and showed us where the 
body of a handsome young paratrooper was lying dead. She begins to cry, 
making my daughter cry, making me cry. She said, ``I looked at this 
handsome young American boy come to liberate us, dead at the very 
doorstep of my father's shop right here.''

                              {time}  1740

  I thought, ``How wonderful, and yet how sad, that Americans have to 
come back twice inside of one generation, sons coming back to do what 
their father did, die for French freedom.'' Then she showed me where 
young men were hanging in the trees.
  I saw that great moment when John Wayne is playing Gen. Maxwell 
Taylor. Wayne says in that classic style of this, ``Cut 'em down'' 
meaning all the young paratroopers hanging in the trees. It struck me 
then that the first American flags flown over France were the ones 
stitched on the shoulders of the field jackets of the paratroopers who 
died hanging in those trees.
  That was the occasion of the first flying of the American flags, 
heroes' bodies turning in that morning breeze of June 6. That was the 
beginning of the liberation of France.
  There were all sorts of flags from World War I, from the South 
Pacific, flags that had come up from the landing at Salerno in Italy 
the year before. All sorts of flags, including flags hidden by the 
French, burst out all over Normandy during the month of that titanic 
struggle.
  As I said yesterday, it was Rommel himself, Erwin Rommel, the field 
marshal, the Desert Fox, that said this would be the longest day of the 
war because the Americans, the British, the small French units, and the 
Canadians established a beachhead. That was the end of the war.
  That landing, because it was successful, caused the assassination 
plot against Hitler; tyrannicide is the way I think to think about it, 
the justifiable Judeo-Christian murder of a tyrant to save lives. That 
plot, Operation Valkyrie of Klaus van Stoffenberg, was thwarted just 44 
days later, on July 20. Five thousand German officers who--too late, 
far too late, but still in a just way--tried to take out the tyrant. 
They paid for it with their lives, hung by piano wire from butcher 
hooks. Hitler has it all photographed, the 16 millimeter film sent up 
to Berchtesgaden or to the bunker in Berlin where like a pervert he 
would sit for hours and hours and watch over and over the film of these 
5,000 German officers and high ranking civilians executed. Some of them 
were innocent; they should have been in on the Valkyrie assassination 
plot, but they were not.

  What an amazing thing that we established that beachhead.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, I will come back. I will see if there are some 
stories to bring home to motivate the next generations of Americans. To 
tell them that the United States of America for all of her faults, is a 
superior attempt at culture; that this truly is a nation of immigrants, 
a polyglot country of many cultures, every culture from everywhere in 
the world. There are even aboriginal people from Australia that have 
come to America and became American citizens.
  We are a different country than any one that has ever existed. We 
have fought in wars around the world with no strings attached, bled our 
treasure and the blood of young men. There are also women who have 
died, eight died for their country as combat nurses in Vietnam. We have 
really done something in this century that no country has ever done 
before, die fighting for freedom with no strings attached and nothing 
asked of the countries that we liberate or the countries that we 
conquered like Japan, Germany, or Italy other than: ``Get your 
political scene together in a coherent way, and let your people share 
in your process of government.''
  So, Mr. Speaker, what I would like to do before I put in the Record 
President Ronald Reagan's good-bye speech to this Nation on 11 January 
1989, 9 days before the inauguration of his then Vice President, George 
Bush, to become the 41st President; our 40th President, Ronald Reagan, 
at the end of about an eight-page address to television saying good-bye 
paused and said:
  ``There is something else I'd like to say to my fellow Americans by 
way of good-bye,'' and again I paraphrase him badly, but it will be in 
the Record. He told his Nation of the importance of remembering our 
history, the men and women who came to a frontier and tried to create a 
new and a different type of democracy. And, in the main, we have 
succeeded amazingly well. He told young children something to the 
effect: ``I give you kids permission to get on your parents' case at 
the kitchen table and demand of your parents that they make sure you 
are educated in the history of this Nation.''

  That probably will go down as one of the finest and constructive 
good-byes of any American President.
  Three weeks ago I had the opportunity as a member of the Committee on 
Armed Services and as a fading, aging peacetime fighter pilot to strap 
into the back seat of a Navy F-14 Tomcat and fly out to the U.S.S. 
Eisenhower, one of our big nuclear supercarriers. We shot five 
landings, cable-arrested landings, on the deck. Navy jocks call those 
traps. And, when we landed, I thought we were going to go below and 
meet the admiral and the skipper of the ship, and I always wanted to 
meet some of the women that were assigned. This is going to be the 
first man-of-war, the first U.S. Navy line ship, with women on board. I 
thought we were going to taxi over, and I could see there was no guard 
there, no people to greet us. It was raining, and all of a sudden we 
taxied, and then took a left turn, and suddenly we were locked into 
catapult No. 4, and they go through that amazing process. It is almost 
like a dance of the macabre with all these young Navy people in 
different colored uniforms, armorers, fuelers, cat men, catapult men.
  By the way, that is the most dangerous industrial or military work 
environment in peacetime anywhere on the planet Earth, the deck of a 
carrier during recoveries and launches, and suddenly we are lined up, 
and this was my first catapult launch in a fighter. I had done it on 
board delivery aircraft in the Persian Gulf after visiting with my 
nephew, Don Dornan, Jr., Navy officer. But you are sitting backward in 
the back of a small transport plane. This is my first time in a cat 
launch, facing forward, in the radar intercept officer's position, and 
it was one of the better flying experiences of my life, right up there 
with flying three times the speed of sound at 84,000 feet in an SR-71 
Black Bird. That still maybe is a notch more impressive. But, when we 
launched off that cat, I planned to take a picture from the back seat 
with my Nikon. I was shoved back so hard, I did not get it, so the next 
launch we catapulted--five times in a row, and, when I finally got out 
in a pouring rainstorm and went into the island of the big sail, the 
island of the carrier, to meet with the admiral and the captain, the 
skipper of the ship, I kept thinking to myself, over and over:

  ``What an honor it is for Nixon's grandkids and Eisenhower's 
grandkids to have this big beautiful Navy man of war aircraft carrier 
named after Eisenhower.'' I thought, ``What a special President he 
was,'' and, ``How lucky our country was to have somebody as the 
Commander in Chief during the peacetime years that I flew as a fighter 
pilot.''
  I think a key reason why I was never called upon to kill some other 
mother's child, or be killed and shot down myself is, when you have a 
five-star general, and we only have had eight five-star admirals and 
generals, sitting in the White House, we have a man of character to 
look up to. The whole military establishment says that, ``If this man 
gives me orders, if this man talks to me about Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, 
Guadalcanal, the beaches in France, this is a man I'll obey willingly 
and lay my life on the line.''
  So, thinking about that beautiful carrier, thinking about General and 
then-President Eisenhower, this humble man from Abilene, KS, who 
graduated in the class of West Point of 1915, I stopped one of our 
great chairmen here, Democrat Tom Bevill, and asked him where he was 
when Ike read these words. Tom went into the beach a few days after he 
was training people, he was an officer training people in England, and 
he said, ``Those of us in England didn't hear it read. We saw it in the 
paper the next day, Stars and Stripes or British papers.''

                              {time}  1750

  He said, he reminded me it was piped over the PA system of every one 
of those 5,000 invasion ships.
  Before I do it, Mr. Speaker, let me find that key paragraph in 
Reagan's January 11 farewell address to the Nation. Let me read the 
opening and then I will go looking for it.
  Ronald Reagan.

       My Fellow Americans: This is the 34th time I'll speak to 
     you from the Oval Office and the last. We've been together 8 
     years now, and soon it will be time for me to go.

  Mr. Speaker, in my lifetime there have only been three 8-year 
Presidents: President Roosevelt who died into his 13th year by 89 days; 
and then Eisenhower's 8 years, and Ronald Reagan, our only other 8-year 
President since Woodrow Wilson. He says:

       Before I do, I wanted to share some thoughts, some of which 
     I've been saving for a long time. It's been the honor of my 
     life to be your President.

  He goes on telling about how he and Nancy have been so honored to 
receive so many letters. He says:

       You know, down the hall and up the stairs from this office 
     is the part of the White House where the President and his 
     family live. There are a few favorite windows I have up there 
     that I like to stand and look out of early in the morning. 
     The view is over the grounds here to the Washington Monument 
     and then the Mall and the Jefferson Memorial. But on mornings 
     when the humidity is low, you can see past Jefferson to the 
     river, the Potomac, and the Virginia shore. Someone said 
     that's the view Lincoln had when he saw the smoke rising from 
     the Battle of Bull Run. I see more prosaic things, the grass 
     on the banks, the morning traffic as people make their way to 
     work, and now and then a sailboat on the river.
       I've been thinking a bit at that window. I've been 
     reflecting on what the past 8 years have meant and mean. And 
     the image that comes to mind like a refrain is a nautical 
     one. A small story about a big ship and a refugee and a 
     sailor. It was back in the early 1980's at the height of the 
     boat people. And a U.S. sailor was hard at work on the 
     carrier Midway which was patrolling the South China Sea. The 
     sailor like most American servicemen was young, smart, and 
     fiercely observant. The crew spied on the horizon a leaky 
     little boat. And crammed inside were refugees from Indochina 
     hoping to get to America.

  Refugees caused by the Stroke Talbotts, the Sam Browns, the Derrick 
Shearers and the Bill Clintons of the world. That is my Bob Dornan 
footnote.

       The Midway sent a small launch to bring them to the ship 
     and safety. As the refugees made their way through the choppy 
     seas, one refugee spied the sailor on deck and stood up and 
     called out to him. He yelled up, ``Hello, American sailor. 
     Hello, freedom man.'' A small moment with a big meaning, a 
     moment the sailor who wrote it in a letter couldn't get out 
     of his mind. And, when I saw it, neither could I. Because 
     that's what it was to be an American in the 1980's. We stood 
     again for freedom. I know we always have. But in the past few 
     years, the world again and in a way we ourselves rediscovered 
     it.

  He goes on to talk about Grenada, the Washington and the Moscow 
summits. This will all be in the record, Mr. Speaker.
  And then he comes to this, talks about we the people. We the people 
tell the government what to do, it does not tell us--not often. We the 
people are the driver, the government is the car.
  He goes through a more and more beautiful paragraph talking about 
Gorbachev and some of the Reagan regiments that will have to become the 
Bush brigades.
  He comes down to the end, and here is that part that I want to use as 
a prologue to D-Day.
  He says, and I'm quoting President Reagan's final address, last 
paragraph, the President says:

       An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a 
     good enough job teaching our children what America is and 
     what she represents in the long history of the world? Those 
     of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a 
     different America. We were taught very directly what it means 
     to be an American. And we absorbed almost in the air a love 
     of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you 
     didn't get these things from your family, you got them from 
     the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought 
     in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you 
     could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else 
     failed, you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular 
     culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and 
     implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. 
     Television was like that, too, through the mid-1960's.
       But now we're about to enter the 90's and some things have 
     changed. Younger parents aren't sure that an unambivalent 
     appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern 
     children. And as for those who create the popular culture, 
     well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit 
     is back

he is talking now in January 1989

     but we haven't reinstitutionalized it. We've got to do a 
     better job of getting across that American is freedom, 
     freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of 
     enterprise, and freedom is special and rare. It is fragile. 
     It needs protection.
       So we have got to teach history, based not on what's in 
     fashion but what is important. Why the Pilgrims came here. 
     Who Jimmy Doolittle was and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo 
     meant.
       You know 4 years ago on the 40th anniversary of D-Day

next week's it's a 50

     I read a letter from a young woman writing to her late father 
     who had fought on Omaha Beach.
       What a moment that was.
       Her name was Lisa Zanatta Henn. And she said: ``We will 
     always remember. We will never forget what the boys of 
     Normandy did.'' Well, let's help her keep her word,

President Reagan said to us in his goodbye.

       If we forget what we did, we won't know who we are. I'm 
     warning of an eradication of the American memory that could 
     result ultimately in an erosion of the American spirit.
       Let's start with some basics: More attention to American 
     history and a greater emphasis on civil ritual. And let me 
     offer lesson number one about America. All great change in 
     America begins at the kitchen table. So tomorrow night, in 
     the kitchen, I hope the talking begins. And, children, if 
     your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be an 
     American, let'em know and nail'em on it. That would be a very 
     American thing to do.

                              {time}  1800

       That is about all I have to say tonight, except for one 
     thing: The past few days when I have been at that window 
     upstairs, I have thought a bit of the shining city on a hill. 
     That phrase comes from John Winthrop, who by the way, his 
     statue is right downstairs, first Governor of Massachusetts, 
     and his son, first Governor of Connecticut. What he imagined 
     was important, because he was an early pilgrim, an early 
     freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we would call a 
     little wooden boat. And like the other pilgrims, he was 
     looking for a home that would be free.
       I have spoken of the shining city all my political life, 
     but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when 
     I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city, built on 
     rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and 
     teeming with people of all kinds, living in harmony and 
     peace. A city with free ports that hummed with commerce and 
     creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had 
     doors, and the doors were open to anyone with the will and 
     the heart to get here. That is how I saw it and see it still. 
     And out stands that city on a hill this winter night, more 
     prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was 8 years ago. 
     But more than that, after 200 years, two centuries, she still 
     stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow is 
     held steady no matter what the storm. And she is still a 
     beacon, still a magnet, for all who must have freedom. For 
     all the pilgrims, from all the lost places, who are hurdling 
     through the darkness toward home. We have done our part. And 
     as I walk off into the city streets, a final word to the men 
     and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across 
     America who for 8 years did the work that brought America 
     back. My friends, we did it. We were not just marking time. 
     We made a difference. We made the city stronger, freer, and 
     left it in good hands. All in all, not bad. Not bad at all.
       So good-bye, God Bless you, and God bless the United States 
     of America.

  The big event in my life as a kid was dreaming about being in a 
Thunderbolt or a Mustang or a Lightning over the decks of Normandy. 
Like most kids with an imagination, you wanted it all.
  I dreamed about shooting down a Messerschmidt, and then getting shot 
down myself, joining the paratroopers on the ground, fighting on the 
beach, joining the 4th Division, the 1st, the 29th. Kids wanted it all. 
Today girls can have those dreams of glory fighting for freedom, and 
having the mayor of a French town bring out a hidden bottle of 
champagne, and with the fire still going on over your head. It is 
beautifully written in Cornelius Ryan's book, ``The Longest Day. ``This 
mayor putting on his medallions of office, those chains with all the 
crests of the city, and his champagne bottle, dead cows around him, 
Saying: ``Welcome, American, welcome.''
  Twenty-two sets of twins now rest in the beautiful cemetary at 
Deauville, in the hills overlooking Omaha Beach. One father and son 
rest there as well. A father who fought in World War I buried next to 
his son who had come back to liberate France again.
  Unbelievable, that graveyard.
  Let me take the center lectern as I close here, Mr. Speaker, to read 
Dwight D. Eisenhower's words on the evening of June 5th, to the men who 
were going to draw their last breath the next day.
  Ike had what is called the midwestern American, non-accented, 
standard American voice, and I can hear it in my head as I read this 
from the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force:

       Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary 
     Force: You are about to embark on a great crusade toward 
     which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the 
     world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty loving 
     people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave 
     allies and brothers in arms on other fronts, you will bring 
     about the destruction of the German war machine, the 
     elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of 
     Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
       Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well-
     trained, well-equipped, and battle-hardened. He will fight 
     savagely.
       But this is the year, 1944. Much has happened since the 
     Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The united nations have inflicted 
     upon the Germans great defeats in open battle, man-to-man. 
     Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the 
     air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our home 
     fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons 
     and munitions of war and placed at our disposal great 
     reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned. The 
     free men of the world are marching to victory. I have full 
     confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in 
     battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory.
       Good luck. And let us all beseech the blessing of all-
     mighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

  And there is his signature.
  He then ordered that the ``Our Father'' would be recited by a 
chaplain over the public address system of every ship in that 5,000 
invasion force. Young men seasick because it was very stormy, throwing 
up all night long, weak, exhausted, on the ships hours longer than they 
planned. The last words they heard, other than the din of battle and 
the screams of fellow soldiers: Over here. I am hit. Medic. The last 
words they heard in silent contemplation were: ``Our Father, who are in 
heaven, hollowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on 
earth as it is in heaven.''
  Those words of the ``Our Father,'' and its final line, would be 
deemed politically incorrect and insulting to a tiny minority in that 
invasion force.
  It is too bad that we leave some of this history behind, and that we 
didn't have that hour ceremony that I dreamed about on the House floor 
today, without my participation, with just my sitting out there, 
listening to Republican Strom Thurmond, Democrat Tom Bevill, hero 
paratrooper Sam Gibbons, and all the others like Bob Michael that 
poured onto that beachhead day after day until we were rolling across 
northern France behind George Patton, gallantly letting the French unit 
under General LeClerci go into Paris on August 25. What amazing 
historical events to follow as an 8, 9, 10, 11-year-old-boy.

                              {time}  1810

  It made me want to come to Congress. It made me want to fly 
supersonic fighters in the Air Force. It makes me want to dream about 
other, higher office than serving as a Congressman in this great 
legislative Chamber.
  I wish everybody, every American, could be with us 40 Congressmen and 
women and the veterans of this Chamber and the other Chamber that lead 
us back to the beautiful beaches and the tough hedge rows of northern 
France, the Normandy coastline, and to Anzio, the forgotten struggle in 
Italy.
  A final word, Mr. Speaker, I wear around my neck a small St. 
Christopher given to me by Lt. Walter Krell, a veterinarian from 
Northern California who is still a healthy, vigorous man in practice 
today. He wore this little medal around his neck on 20 missions in the 
South Pacific.
  He led President Johnson's aircraft when President Johnson was in the 
back, won the Silver Star for merely huddling, as I would have done, 
because he was not at a gun station, was not a pilot or crew member, 
just observing as a Navy Lieutenant Commander for Sam Rayburn, Speaker 
of this Chamber. Walter Krell was at this time in New Guinea.
  We were fighting across the northern part of New Guinea at this point 
50 years ago. George Bush's carrier, last Monday, 50 years ago, the San 
Jacinto, with Wasp and Essex, had hit Marcus Island.
  Another task force had shelled Wake Island, where 200 American 
prisoners were in the last year of their life. They would be executed, 
every one of them shot in the back of the head, civilian construction 
workers, because we bypassed Wake Island.
  Men were dying in the jungle still in Bougainville, the Solomon 
Islands were not secure, the Admiralty Islands, men were dying over the 
skies of Rabaul. I don't want to forget what was happening 50 years ago 
throughout the whole Pacific.
  And our Russian allies, under the cruel dictator Stalin who killed 
more people than Hitler, were still fighting magnificently, giving up 
three or four lives for every German they captured as they pushed the 
Nazi forces back to the six death camps in Poland, where they would 
soon find a demonic nightmare of piles of bodies, all the result of 
politics, politics gone wrong in Germany and Italy and in Tokyo in the 
Diet. And it still continued to go wrong in the Soviet Union, even 
after their great victories over another form of tyranny.
  These are 50th anniversaries of momentous days, Mr. Speaker, and I am 
just sorry that we do not have some time in our legislative schedule to 
pause and take President Reagan's advice and contemplate the unique, 
special, and noble history of our great country. God bless America.

            Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force

       Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary 
     Force!
       You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward 
     which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the 
     world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving 
     people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave 
     Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring 
     about the destruction of the German war machine, the 
     elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of 
     Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
       Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well 
     trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight 
     savagely.
       But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi 
     triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon 
     the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our 
     air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air 
     and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts 
     have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and 
     munition of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of 
     trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of 
     the world are marching together to Victory!
       I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty 
     and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full 
     Victory!
       Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty 
     God upon this great and noble undertaking.
                                             Dwight D. Eisenhower.
                                  ____


             Ronald Reagan's Farewell Address to the Nation

                           (January 11, 1989)

       My Fellow Americans: This is the 34th time I'll speak to 
     you from the Oval Office and the last. We've been together 8 
     years now, and soon it'll be time for me to go. But before I 
     do, I wanted to share some thoughts, some of which I've been 
     saving for a long time.
       It's been the honor of my life to be your President. So 
     many of you have written the past few weeks to say thanks, 
     but I could say as much to you. Nancy and I are grateful for 
     the opportunity you gave us to serve.
       One of the things about the Presidency is that you're 
     always somewhat apart. You spent a lot of time going by too 
     fast in a car someone else is driving, and seeing the people 
     through tinted glass--the parents holding up a child, and the 
     wave you saw too late and couldn't return. And so many times 
     I wanted to stop and reach out from behind the glass, and 
     connect. Well, maybe I can do a little of that tonight.
       People ask how I feel about leaving. And the fact is, 
     ``parting is such sweet sorrow.'' The sweet part is 
     California and the ranch and freedom. The sorrow--the 
     goodbyes, of course, and leaving this beautiful place.
       You know, down the hall and up the stairs from this office 
     is the part of the White House where the President and his 
     family live. There are a few favorite windows I have up there 
     that I like to stand and look out of early in the morning. 
     The view is over the grounds here to the Washington Monument, 
     and then the Mall and the Jefferson Memorial. But on mornings 
     when the humidity is low, you can see past the Jefferson to 
     the river, the Potomac, and the Virginia shore. Someone said 
     that's the view Lincoln had when he saw the smoke rising from 
     the Battle of Bull Run. I see more prosaic things: the grass 
     on the banks, the morning traffic as people make their way to 
     work, now and then a sailboat on the river.
       I've been thinking a bit at that window. I've been 
     reflecting on what the past 8 years have meant and mean. And 
     the image that comes to mind like a refrain is a nautical 
     one--a small story about a big ship, and a refugee, and a 
     sailor. It was back in the early eighties, at the height of 
     the boat people. And the sailor was hard at work on the 
     carrier Midway, which was patrolling the South China Sea. The 
     sailor, like most American servicemen, was young, smart, and 
     fiercely observant. The crew spied on the horizon a leaky 
     little boat. And crammed inside were refugees from 
     Indochina hoping to get to America. The Midway sent a 
     small launch to bring them to the ship and safety. As the 
     refugees made their way through the choppy seas, one spied 
     the sailor on deck, and stood up, and called out to him. 
     He yelled, ``Hello, American sailor. Hello, freedom man.''
       A small moment with a big meaning, a moment the sailor, who 
     wrote it in a letter, couldn't get out of his mind. And, when 
     I saw it, neither could I. Because that's what it was to be 
     an American in the 1980's. We stood, again, for freedom. I 
     know we always have, but in the past few years the world 
     again--and in a way, we ourselves--rediscovered it.
       It's been quite a journey this decade, and we held together 
     through some stormy seas. And at the end, together, we are 
     reaching our destination.
       The fact is, from Grenada to the Washington and Moscow 
     summits, from the recession of '81 to '82, to the expansion 
     that began in late '82 and continues to this day, we've made 
     a difference. The way I see it, there were two great 
     triumphs, two things that I'm proudest of. One is the 
     economic recovery, in which the people of America created--
     and filled--19 million new jobs. The other is the recovery of 
     our morale. America is respected again in the world and 
     looked to for leadership.
       Something that happened to me a few years ago reflects some 
     of this. It was back in 1981, and I was attending my first 
     big economic summit, which was held that year in Canada. The 
     meeting place rotates among the member countries. The opening 
     meeting was a formal dinner for the heads of government of 
     the seven industrialized nations. Now, I sat there like the 
     new kid in school and listened, and it was all Francois this 
     and Helmut that. They dropped titles and spoke to one another 
     on a first-name basis. Well, at one point I sort of learned 
     in and said, ``My name's Ron.'' Well, in that same year, we 
     began the actions we felt would ignite an economic comeback--
     cut taxes and regulation, started to cut spending. And soon 
     the recovery began.
       Two years later, another economic summit with pretty much 
     the same cast. At the big opening meeting we all got 
     together, and all of sudden, just for a moment, I saw that 
     everyone was just sitting there looking at me. And then one 
     of them broke the silence. ``Tell us about the American 
     miracle,'' he said.
       Well, back in 1980, when I was running for President, it 
     was all so different. Some pundits said our programs would 
     result in catastrophe. Our views on foreign affairs would 
     cause war. Our plans for the economy would cause inflation to 
     soar and bring about economic collapse. I even remember one 
     highly respected economist saying, back in 1982, that ``The 
     engines of economic growth have shut down here, and they're 
     likely to stay that way for years to come.'' Well, he and the 
     other opinion leaders were wrong. The fact is what they call 
     ``radical'' was really ``right.'' What they called 
     ``dangerous'' was just ``desperately needed.''
       And in all of that time I won a nickname, ``The Great 
     Communicator.'' But I never though it was my style or the 
     words I used that made a difference: it was the content. I 
     wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things, 
     and they didn't spring full bloom from my brow, they came 
     from the heart of a great nation--from our experience, our 
     wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us 
     for two centuries. They called it the Reagan revolution. 
     Well, I'll accept that, but for me it always seemed more like 
     the great rediscovery, a rediscovery of our values and our 
     common sense.
       Common sense told us that when you put a big tax on 
     something, the people will produce less of it. So, we cut the 
     people's tax rates, and the people produced more than ever 
     before. The economy bloomed like a plant that had been cut 
     back and could now grow quicker and stronger. Our economic 
     program brought about the longest peacetime expansion in our 
     history: real family income up, the poverty rate down, 
     entrepreneurship booming, and an explosion in research and 
     new technology. We're exporting more than ever because 
     American industry because more competitive and at the same 
     time, we summoned the national will to knock down 
     protectionist walls abroad instead of erecting them at home.
       Common sense also told us that to preserve the peace, we'd 
     have to become strong again after years of weakness and 
     confusion. So, we rebuilt our defenses, and this New Year we 
     toasted the new peacefulness around the globe. Not only have 
     the superpowers actually begun to reduce their stockpiles of 
     nuclear weapons--and hope for even more progress is bright--
     but the regional conflicts that rack the globe are also 
     beginning to cease. The Persian Gulf is no longer a war zone. 
     The Soviets are leaving Afghanistan. The Vietnamese 
     are preparing to pull out of Cambodia, and an American-
     mediated accord will soon send 50,000 Cuban troops home 
     from Angola.
       The lesson of all this was, of course, that because we're a 
     great nation, our challenges seem complex. It will always be 
     this way. But as long as we remember our first principles and 
     believe in ourselves, the future will always be ours. And 
     something else we learned: Once you begin a great movement, 
     there's no telling where it will end. We meant to change a 
     nation, and instead, we changed a world.
       Countries across the globe are turning to free markets and 
     free speech and turning away from the ideologies of the past. 
     For them, the great rediscovery of the 1980's has been that, 
     lo and behold, the moral way of government is the practical 
     way of government: Democracy, the profoundly good, is also 
     the profoundly productive.
       When you've got to the point when you can celebrate the 
     anniversaries of your 39th birthday you can sit back 
     sometimes, review your life, and see it flowing before you. 
     For me there was a fork in the river, and it was right in the 
     middle of my life. I never meant to go into politics. It 
     wasn't my intention when I was young. But I was raised to 
     believe you had to pay your way for the blessings bestowed on 
     you. I was happy with my career in the entertainment world, 
     but I ultimately went into politics because I wanted to 
     protect something precious.
       Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind 
     that truly reversed the course of government, and with three 
     little words: ``We the People.'' ``We the People'' tell the 
     government what to do; it doesn't tell us. ``We the People'' 
     are the driver; the government is the car. And we decide 
     where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost 
     all the world's constitutions are documents in which 
     governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our 
     Constitution is a document in which ``We the People'' tell 
     the government what it is allowed to do. ``We the People'' 
     are free. This belief has been the underlying basis for 
     everything I've tried to do these past 8 years.
       But back in the 1960's, when I began, it seemed to me that 
     we'd begun reversing the order of things--that through 
     more and more rules and regulations and confiscatory 
     taxes, the government was taking more of our money, more 
     of our options, and more of our freedom. I went into 
     politics in part to put up my hand and say, ``Stop.'' I 
     was a citizen politician, and it seemed the right thing 
     for a citizen to do.
       I think we have stopped a lot of what needed stopping. And 
     I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not 
     free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and 
     effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of 
     physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.
       Nothing is less free than pure communism--and yet we have, 
     the past few years, forged a satisfying new closeness with 
     the Soviet Union. I've been asked if this isn't a gamble, and 
     my answer is no because we're basing our actions not on words 
     but deeds. The detente of the 1970's was based not on actions 
     but promises. They'd promise to treat their own people and 
     the people of the world better. But the gulag was still the 
     gulag, and the state was still expansionist, and they still 
     waged proxy wars in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
       Well, this time, so far, it's different. President 
     Gorbachev has brought about some internal democratic reforms 
     and begun the withdrawal from Afghanistan. He has also freed 
     prisoners whose names I've given him every time we've met.
       But life has a way of reminding you of big things through 
     small incidents. Once, during the heady days of the Moscow 
     summit, Nancy and I decided to break off from the entourage 
     one afternoon to visit the shops on Arbat Street--that's a 
     little street just off Moscow's main shopping area. Even 
     though our visit was a surprise, every Russian there 
     immediately recognized us and called out our names and 
     reached for our hands. We were just about swept away by the 
     warmth. You could almost feel the possibilities in all that 
     joy. But within seconds, a KGB detail pushed their way toward 
     us and began pushing and shoving the people in the crowd. It 
     was an interesting moment. It reminded me that while the man 
     on the street in the Soviet Union yearns for peace, the 
     government is Communist. And those who run it are Communists, 
     and that means we and they view such issues as freedom and 
     human rights very differently.
       We must keep up our guard, but we must also continue to 
     work together to lessen and eliminate tension and mistrust. 
     My view is that President Gorbachev is different from 
     previous Soviet leaders. I think he knows some of the things 
     wrong with his society and is trying to fix them. We wish him 
     well. And we'll continue to work to make sure that the Soviet 
     Union that eventually emerges from this process is a less 
     threatening one. What it all boils down to is this: I want 
     the new closeness to continue. And it will, as long as we 
     make it clear that we will continue to act in a certain way 
     as long as they continue to act in a helpful manner. If and 
     when they don't, at first pull your punches. If they persist, 
     pull the plug. It's still trust by verify. It's still play, 
     but cut the cards. It's still watch closely. And don't be 
     afraid to see what you see.
       I've been asked if I have any regrets. Well, I do. The 
     deficit is one. I've been talking a great deal about that 
     lately, but tonight isn't for arguments, and I'm going to 
     hold my tongue. But an observation: I've had my share of 
     victories in the Congress, but what few people noticed is 
     that I never won anything you didn't win for me. They never 
     saw my troops, they never saw Reagan's regiments, the 
     American people. You won every battle with every call you 
     made and letter you wrote demanding action. Well, action is 
     still needed. If we're to finish the job. Reagan's regiments 
     will have to become the Bush brigades. Soon he'll be the 
     chief, and he'll need you every bit as much as I did.
       Finally, there is a great tradition of warnings in 
     Presidential farewells, and I've got one that's been on my 
     mind for some time. But oddly enough it starts with one of 
     the things I'm proudest of in the past 8 years: the 
     resurgence of national pride that I called the new 
     patriotism. This national feeling is good, but it won't count 
     for much, and it won't last unless it's grounded in 
     thoughtfulness and knowledge.
       An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a 
     good enough job teaching our children what America is and 
     what she represents in the long history of the world? 
     Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in 
     a different America. We were taught, very directly, what 
     it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the 
     air, a love of country and an appreciation of its 
     institutions. If you didn't get these things from your 
     family you got them from the neighborhood, from the father 
     down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost 
     someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism 
     from school. And if all else failed you could get a sense 
     of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies 
     celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the 
     idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, 
     through the mid-sixties.
       But now, we're about to enter the nineties, and some things 
     have changed. Younger parents aren't sure that an 
     unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to 
     teach modern children. And as for those who create the 
     popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the 
     style. Our spirit is back, but we haven't reinstitutionalized 
     it. We've got to do a better job of getting across that 
     America is freedom--freedom of speech, freedom of religion, 
     freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It's 
     fragile; it needs production [protection].
       So, we've got to teach history based not on what's in 
     fashion but what's important--why the Pilgrims came here, who 
     Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo 
     meant. You know, 4 years ago on the 40th anniversary of D-
     day, I read a letter from a young woman writing to her late 
     father, who'd fought on Omaha Beach. Her name was Lisa 
     Zanatta Henn, and she said, ``we will always remember, we 
     will never forget what the boys of Normandy did.'' Well, 
     let's help her keep her word. If we forget what we did, we 
     won't know who we are. I'm warning of an eradication of the 
     American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion 
     of the American spirit. Let's start with some basics: more 
     attention to American history and a greater emphasis on civic 
     ritual.
       And let me offer lesson number one about America: All great 
     change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow 
     night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. And 
     children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what 
     it means to be an American, let 'em know and nail 'em on 
     it. That would be a very American thing to do.
       And that's about all I have to say tonight, except for one 
     thing. The past few days when I've been at that window 
     upstairs, I've thought a bit of the ``shining city upon a 
     hill.'' The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to 
     describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was 
     important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom 
     man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little 
     wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for 
     a home that would be free.
       I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but 
     I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I 
     said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on 
     rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and 
     teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; 
     a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and 
     creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had 
     doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the 
     heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.
       And how stands the city on this winter night? More 
     prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was 8 years ago. 
     But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still 
     stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has 
     held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, 
     still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the 
     pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through 
     the darkness, toward home.
       We've done our part. And as I walk off into the city 
     streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan 
     revolution, the men and women across America who for 8 years 
     did the work that brought America back. My friends: We did 
     it. We weren't just marking time. We made a difference. We 
     made the city stronger, we made the city freer, and we left 
     her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all.
       And so, goodbye, God bless you, and God bless the United 
     States of America.
       Note: The President spoke at 9:02 p.m. from the Oval Office 
     at the White House. The address was broadcast live on 
     nationwide radio and television.

                          ____________________