RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, this is the 6th of June. I realize that many of you know what the significance is of the 6th of June, but if all the adult Americans alive do not know what today is, then there is something very, very wrong. If every journalist, if every pundit, every blogger, every member of the United Nations does not know what today is, there is something very wrong. June 6th, they called it D-Day. On this day, 64 years ago, 150,000 American GIs stormed the beaches at Normandy. The casualties and the death toll in one day dwarf what has happened in Iraq in four or five years. In one day, approximately 2,500 GIs and 2,600 paratroopers were injured or killed in action. More than 5,000 losses in one day. That’s just the Americans. The Canadians and the Brits suffered even more. Well, equal, even more. They did not suffer more. They were not more deaths, but there were more deaths if you count our allies, the Canadians and the British. The casualties and the deaths at D-Day of the United States and its allies, dwarf — dwarf — the casualties and deaths in five years of the Iraq war.
And on D-Day, the mission was accomplished. Do you know what the mission was? What was the mission of D-Day? The mission of D-Day was to land on the beaches at Normandy. That was the mission, and we did. We landed. Then the second phase of the mission was to take back France, and we did. You know, I’ve been there. I was there a couple of days before, I think it was the 50th anniversary of D-Day, and I made it a point. I went to Omaha Beach, and I made it a point to go down to Pointe du Hoc, because I remember Reagan delivering one of the greatest speeches of his presidency at Pointe du Hoc. Now, Pointe du Hoc was the place where the German… Well, the German guns were all over the beach, but the German guns high atop Pointe du Hoc had just free rein over anybody trying to climb the cliffs. Once you took the beach, once you stormed the beach, US Army Rangers had to rappel straight up to get to the German guns.
And they got there while the Germans were just firing point-blank range with nothing in the way. I mean, it was one of the most courageous acts of heroism. The Army Rangers just kept coming. Reagan referred to them as ‘the boys of Pointe du Hoc,’ and I will never forget the tear in his eye and his voice broke when he was recalling the events of that day at Pointe du Hoc. If you have any sense of history or patriotism or gratitude, take a moment and be thankful on two counts. First, the sacrifice made by all of those in battle — those who passed and those who survived. In fact, I read a piece late last night, Victor Davis Hanson either is or was recently in Europe, and he visited three military cemeteries on these sacred grounds with Normandy and a couple of other places. And he wrote just eloquently about it. And I’ve seen these cemeteries. I saw the one at Normandy. The sacrifice made by those in battle — those who pass, those who survived — be thankful for that.
Second, that no senator, no congressman, no political party used the costs and the losses for political advantage to try and take over Congress. Back during World War II — the Normandy invasion, the Battle of the Bulge — nothing happened in American politics like is happening today where the effort on the part of the US military was proclaimed a failure by one of the political parties. It was never stated publicly, ‘We can’t win,’ by members of the House or Senate on the Senate floor. They were not, in those days, saying anything publicly to demoralize the troops. Nor were they doing anything to castigate the commander-in-chief at the time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Sixty-four years ago was one of the greatest days of the so-called Greatest Generation. So give them a thought and at least a few seconds. If you don’t know anybody from that era to thank personally, then think your thanks to them.
The real story of D-Day is they landed on the 6th because they wanted to get to northern Italy on the 7th. (laughs) They landed on the 6th because it was the only day they could with weather. It was delayed over and over again. Weather forecasting back then was not nearly as precise as it is today. But they came. The movie is not bad. It’s a movie for its age. The Longest Day summarizes it somewhat. There was also the Tom Hanks movie. Saving Private Ryan is also a pretty good account of one aspect of D-Day and Normandy and the whole French and Normandy invasion. But Eisenhower was not confident it was gonna work. This was so massive an undertaking. I think there were a significant number of deaths even in a training exercise for this mission. Something along the lines of 750.
So today’s D-Day, a lot of people probably don’t know it; many people probably have not even been taught it, but it was truly a remarkable day in the history of the United States military and this country — and if you read the history of it, if you don’t know anything about it, if you read the history of it, you will be stunned to compare how that effort and almost all of World War II was dealt with by the American people and our elected officials compared to the way the war in Iraq has been dealt with. The war in Iraq has featured two wars. We have had to defeat a domestic enemy in the process of waging it. That would be largely the American left, which has sought to undermine it at every stage of the way and proclaim defeat. Plus we’ve had to defeat the bad guys. And both have occurred. The defeat of the bad guys at this stage a little bit more profundity than the defeat of the left, because the left has succeeded in nominating as their presidential candidate a man who sought the defeat of the US military in the war in Iraq.
We’ll be back after this.