We can argue forever about left-right politics and why the country is going to ruin.
But it is Memorial Day weekend.
Let’s forget the endless political warfare being waged in Washington, D.C.
It’s time to honor and mourn all the American military men and women who died while serving in the United States armed forces.
They are the ones whose sacrifices made it possible for us to debate and bicker so freely.
They are the heroes who fought in the battles that allow us to be the great country we are today.
And it is on this weekend that we really need to remember them and thank them for paying the ultimate price to keep us free.
I know many heroic war stories. As I wrote recently, I learned them on any given Saturday morning while sitting in the right-front seat of a station wagon as my father drove me to his Malibu ranch.
My father never forgot our fallen military heroes and he knew how to honor them with beautiful words and powerful deeds.
Forty years ago he was the first president to go to the coast of Normandy to commemorate the Americans who landed on the beaches of France in 1944 on D-Day and helped “to free a continent.”
In his speech to World War II veterans on June 6, 1984, he called “the boys of Pointe du Hoc” who so bravely “took the cliffs” from the Germans “champions” and said they knew why they were fighting.
“You all knew that some things are worth dying for,” he said.
“One’s country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny …”
It’s fitting that “champions” from all our wars will be honored this weekend at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.
Copyright 2024 Michael Reagan, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.