Remembering D-Day 70 Years Later-- Part 2: They Said It

GENERAL DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, 1944:  "Soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!  You are about to embark upon a great crusade, toward which we have striven these months.  The eyes of the world are upon you.  The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you."  Talk about putting the pressure on these brave men.

PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: 1984:  (on the 40th anniversary)  These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc.  These are the men who took the cliffs.  These are the champions who helped free a continent.  These are the heroes who helped end a war.  ...What inspired all the men of the armies that met here?  We look at you, and somehow we know the answer.  It was faith, and belief; it was loyalty and love."

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, 1994: (on the 50th anniversary)  On that chilled dawn, these beaches echoed with the sounds of staccato gunfire, the roar of aircraft, the thunder of bombardment.  And through the wind and the waves came the soldiers, out of their landing craft and into the water, away from their youth and toward a savage place many of them would sadly never leave."

Writing this brings back the first minutes of "Saving Private Ryan."

--GreGen