D-Day, the largest and most complex military operation in human history, was the beginning of the end of World War II in Europe.  Throughout the first half of 1944,  land, naval, and air forces assembled in England where they trained and prepared for the assault on Hitler’s “Fortress Europe.”

More than 5,000 vessels brought the assault force across the English Channel to land on the coast of France in the early morning of June 6, 1944.

During the night before landing craft delivered amphibious assault forces, some 17,000 American and British paratroopers dropped to the ground behind enemy beach positions, to secure exits from the beach and diminish German forces’ ability to counter attack.

At 3:00 AM, gliders carrying heavier equipment  and additional troops began to arrive in the area. The paratroopers who had landed earlier were able to secure the immediate area for landing, but were unable to silence the German anti-aircraft guns.  As a result, the tow planes were forced to climb and release at a higher altitude – making the gliders even more vulnerable.  The enormous, fence-like hedgerows that crisscrossed the countryside made glider landing especially treacherous.   As a result, glider casualties were extremely high.

In one day, amphibious vessels landed some 130,000 troops on five beaches along 50 miles of the Normandy coast between the Cotentin Peninsula and the Orne River. Allied air forces controlled the skies overhead.  The first troops landed on the beaches at about six AM.

German resistance was most deadly at the beach code-named Omaha. When the first wave landed at 6:30 a.m., the men found that naval gunfire and bombing that were supposed to “soften up” German defenses had been ineffective and largely missed German positions. Obstacles erected on the narrow strip of beach, and German machine guns firing from the bluffs overlooking the beach pinned the assault troops down at the water’s edge for most of the morning of D-Day. Finally, a few at a time, incredibly brave men sprinted across the beach and made their way up to the top of the bluffs where they destroyed the German firing positions.

An accurate count of casualties was not possible in the chaos of D-Day combat, but there are authoritative estimates. In April and May of 1944 Allied Air forces lost nearly 12,000 men and over 2,000 aircraft in bombing operations against German infrastructure. On D-Day itself, an estimated 1,465 Americans were killed and 3,184 were wounded.

This is the Normandy American Cemetery, final resting place of 9,386 American heroes.

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We who are safe at home  recall the words of Winston Churchill, repeated and memorialized by Orson Wells:

We sleep soundly in our beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on our behalf.

Here are some examples:

I will not stand by and watch this country destroy itself under mediocre leadership that drifts from one crisis to the next, eroding our national will and purpose.

The current bunch doesn’t exactly “drift” from crisis to crisis.  They embrace and even cause crises.  To them a crisis is an opportunity not to be wasted, an opportunity to expand government’s power and reach.

We have come together here because the American people deserve better from those to whom they entrust our nation’s highest offices.  And we stand united in our resolve to do something about it.  We need a rebirth of the American tradition of leadership at every level of government, and in private life as well.

The United States of America is unique in world history because it has a genius for leaders, many leaders on many levels.  But back in 1976 Mr. Carter said “Trust me.” And a lot of people did.  And now many of those people are out of work…

Trust-me government asks that we concentrate our hopes and dreams on one man, that we trust him to do what’s best for us.   Well, my view of government places  trust not in one person or one party but in those values that transcend persons and parties.

In 2008 we elected another “trust me” candidate, a man with no resume who recycled the old progressive fantasy that given more power over us government could make us more prosperous and happy by involving itself in the details of our lives.  Barack Obama captivated the media and some younger voters with a cult of personality and meaningless slogans like “yes we can” and “we are the people we’ve been waiting for.”

The gang of union bosses and pseudo-intellectual gasbags from media and academia who propelled the the witless Obama Administration into power do not trust Reagan’s values of limited government, maximum liberty, individual autonomy, and voluntary charity.  They trust power, bureaucracy, regulation, and forced redistribution of wealth.

Here’s Reagan’s pledge – a pledge that would well serve the next GOP candidate for President

I pledge to you to restore to the federal government the capacity to do the people’s work without dominating their lives.  I pledge to you a government that will not only work well but wisely, it’s ability to act tempered by prudence, and it’s willingness to do good balanced by the knowledge that government is never more dangerous than when our desire to have it help us blinds us to its great power to harm us.

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An Excerpt:

ASHOQEH, Afghanistan — When a bomb exploded under Dan Luckett’s Army Humvee in Iraq two years ago — blowing off one of his legs and part of his foot — the first thing he thought was: “That’s it. You’re done. No more Army for you.”

But two years later, the 27-year-old Norcross, Ga., native is back on duty — a double-amputee fighting on the front lines of America’s Afghan surge in one of the most dangerous parts of this volatile country.

After Obama fired General McChrystal, Petraeus agreed to step down from his position as head of the military’s Central Command and take over command in Afghanistan.  Petraeus is one of two principle authors of the Military’s counter-insurgency strategy and tactics manual.  He was appointed by President Bush to command the Iraq operation at its darkest moment.  He changed the strategy and tactics in Iraq and led the troop surge that ultimately succeeded in subduing the violence and training Iraqi forces to take over responsibility for their own security.

To understand how fortunate Obama is, and what a true patriot and hero Petraeus is we have to go back to January, 2007 when the Iraq surge began. The political-media establishment was unanimously negative when President Bush ordered the surge.

Then-Senator and Presidential Candidate Obama could have seized the  opportunity to be an idealistic, visionary leader in the cause of Liberty, and American success.  Instead, he deferred to the cynical dogma of those in his party who wanted failure in Iraq, to vindicate their position, that “Bush’s war” was an irreversible disaster. Then-Senator Obama fell back on the simplistic chants of the anti-war Left in a TV interview:

I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.

A few days later he said:

We cannot impose a military solution on what has effectively become a civil war. And until we acknowledge that reality — we can send 15,000 more troops, 20,000 more troops, 30,000 more troops, I don’t know any expert on the region or any military officer that I’ve spoken to privately that believes that that is going to make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground.

In July, 2007 as the intense combat phase of the new strategies and initiatives was in full force in Iraq, and the troops deserved unqualified support from the home front, Senator Obama appeared on The Today Show and said:

My assessment is that the surge has not worked and we will not see a different report eight weeks from now.

Obama repeatedly tried his best prevent success in Iraq, first by introducing legislation that would have aborted the surge just as it began, and by twice voting to withdraw funds for the Iraq operation, even as US troops were engaged in high stakes, daily combat.

Fortunately for the troops and for America, President Bush prevailed over Senator Obama and his allies in Congress and America is now positioned to withdrawal from Iraq in victory, leaving behind a new, functioning democracy and U.S. ally in the heart of the middle east.

It’s a sad injustice that must, some day be made right.  Obama, a petty politician seeking to gain the favor of the obstinately anti-Bush Left suffered no consequences for attempting to undermine the troops and the war effort.  Yet General McChrystal, an national hero loses his command for complaining about incompetent political appointees.

By the way, Vice President Biden, who was also skewered in the Rolling Stone article, is just as guilty of undermining the troops and the war effort as Obama.  Here is one of his anti-surge rants:

The surge isn’t going to work either tactically or strategically,  Tactically it isn’t going to work because … our guys go in and secure a neighborhood, but because we don’t have enough troops, we have to turn it over to the Iraqis, and they can’t hold it or won’t hold it.

As the world now knows, General Petraeus’ counterinsurgency doctrine did work by stationing American troops in Iraqi villages and city neighborhoods until the Iraqi police and military were trained and ready to take over.

If the Afghanistan operation succeeds, and Obama and Biden take bows, someone should remind them of how much they owe, and how little they have paid.

Click to see the one minute video

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I Am the American Dream.

I was born as a vision out of the hearts and minds of the founders and their families who came to the shores of this continent determined to find a better life.  As they fled government oppression and tyranny, they yearned for a new homeland where they could breathe free.

They hoped against hope that they might find a place where everyone could live securely within a fair rule-of-law, without fear of big government bullies overpowering their lives. I became their dream!

I am the American Dream. As my founders dared to dream of me, they saw a life for themselves, free to be exactly who they were and to worship the God who made them that way.  As they worshiped, I began to take on life in their mind’s eye. They envisioned me as a land where their freedom would be treasured equally for everyone as a God-given right, never being handed out by a government as a favor to a select few, or dictated to them against their will.

I am the American Dream. As I continued to take shape, Americans got even more excited about me. They began to realize little by little, that this freedom they sought in me, would allow them to use their talents and creativity to make a living and a life for themselves. The seed of creative craziness was planted in our soil.  Americans began to assume that they could follow the passions that God, himself, had woven into the fiber of their being in their mother’s womb.  They saw that every person who wanted to make a difference in this new country, was challenged to greatness by freedom, itself, even if they had to work from sun-up until sundown to achieve it

I am the American Dream. The best thing about me is, that I am not owned by any one person or clique.  I belong to every American.  When a team of patriots created the Declaration of Independence, the love of me, and sense of ownership was spread to all. The people participated and shared in the investment and commitment to make me real.  “We the People” became the cry of freedom for all who took me as their own.  And, “We the People” set an example of brilliance and excellence that shined like a ray of sunlight around the world.

I am the American Dream.  The fibers of my tapestry were woven most elegantly with threads of pure gold when I was made complete by the writing and ratification to the Constitution of the United States of America. After that I didn’t just hold out hopes for individual freedom and the rule of law any longer, I became it.  I became the reflection of a country thriving on the shared vision of freedom for all. Personal responsibility, commitment, and investment made Americans true owners in their homeland, and in me. An economy based on homes, business ownership, hard work and a minimal government evolved to become strongest in the world.

I am the American Dream. I have provided many rewards to individual, teams., and countries.  I have become one of the strongest forces for good in the world. I gladly share my fortunes and resources to bless the poor across the globe…always have and always will! I captured the imaginations of people everywhere around the globe and they began to come from every corner of the world to become Americans. I am spread around the world, not to enlarge America, but to enlarge freedom, as a God-given right to all.

I am the American Dream.  I am so loved that millions have fought and died for me over the time of my relatively short life. I treasure the blood of every American hero and save every drop as diamonds and rubies among my pure gold threads. These precious gems are proof that I will never die, as long as there are those who will sacrifice their lives to preserve me.  And Americans have truly been living gems where I am concerned.  The more I am challenged, the more Americans will sacrifice to make sure I bounce back alive and well. Patriots, like gem stones, keep going to the grinder in struggles for me.  I shine more brilliantly with every struggle…, aglow with the blood of my fallen heroes and victims who have died at the hands of my enemies. They have brightened America and the world for others, with an unmistakable American beacon that shines even in the darkest times.  Because of them, great leaders have called me the light of the world and the shining city on the hill.

I am the American Dream.  Some people don’t like me. I don’t know why.  Maybe they are jealous of all the crazy fun and joy that emanates from me.  Maybe they fear the loss of control over me if “We the People” really are my owners. Maybe they just feel guilty because they know they didn’t earn me and don’t deserve me? But for whatever reason, I constantly have my detractors and even attackers.  It’s a sad thing too, because my Heavenly father, who inspired me, knows that no one us deserves me. I am a gift of God.  As a gift of God, I am offered freely to all.  God is the only one who can truly control anything. And, the joy that comes from me will flood the soul of anyone who goes to my Father in Heaven to pray with His son Jesus Christ. After all, He made all this possible by grace. No one can earn it.  Not even Patriots.! It’s a pure gift from God.  That’s why I am the American Dream.

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