Boys of Pointe du Hoc

Speech By:  President Ronald Reagan
Title: The Boys of Pointe du Hoc
Date: June 6, 1984
Location: Pointe du Hoc, France
Occasion: 40th Anniversary of D-Day
Analysis:
They landed at the bottom of the cliffs on D-Day, 225 Rangers assigned to scale the sheer cliffs on ropes, battling German defenders above the whole way up. Those lucky enough to reach the top, then had to take the German 155 howitzers whose sights were trained on the beaches at Normandy. After two days of fighting, the Rangers had suffered 60% casualties.

This was the heroic feat commemorated in President Ronald Reagan’s speech “The Boys of Pointe du Hoc.” While no mere ceremony could be equal to their feats of valor, this speech is at least worthy of describing them.

This is a masterpiece of the collaboration between speech writer and speaker. Written by Peggy Noonan, she brings a visual quality to the description of the scene, using plain language. “We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon.”

The opening sentence launches into the speech without hesitation, and establishes that all-important shared identification with the audience. In this case it’s a simple but inarguable premise - We all owe these men a very great deal: “We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty.”

The symbolic meaning of the memorial being dedicated that day is revealed: “Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there.”

Then come the simple yet memorable lines from which the speech takes its name: “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.” Repetition. Like bullet points on a sheet of paper. Notice how each line builds in significance - to show the true importance of what these men accomplished.

As befits an international ceremony, it does not stint on praise for the honor, the resolve, and the sacrifice of all the allies who took part in the liberation of Europe - it speaks of the valor of the Poles, and the Canadians, with a thinly-veiled reference to the disastrous raid at Dieppe two years earlier. Then a seeming roll call of the units involved: “All of these men were part of a rollcall of honor with names that spoke of a pride as bright as the colors they bore: the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Poland’s 24th Lancers, the Royal Scots Fusiliers, the Screaming Eagles, the Yeomen of England’s armored divisions, the forces of Free France, the Coast Guard’s “Matchbox Fleet” and you, the American Rangers.”

Three years before his speech at the Brandenburg Gate, Reagan does not hesitate to call one of the allied partners up short: “Some liberated countries were lost. The great sadness of this loss echoes down to our own time in the streets of Warsaw, Prague, and East Berlin. Soviet troops that came to the center of this continent did not leave when peace came. They're still there, uninvited, unwanted, unyielding, almost 40 years after the war.”

Yet he also offers assurance there is no quarrel with the Soviet people, and that he recognizes their own suffering and valor in the War: “It's fitting to remember here the great losses also suffered by the Russian people during World War II: 20 million perished, a terrible price that testifies to all the world the necessity of ending war. I tell you from my heart that we in the United States do not want war. We want to wipe from the face of the Earth the terrible weapons that man now has in his hands. And I tell you, we are ready to seize that beachhead. We look for some sign from the Soviet Union that they are willing to move forward, that they share our desire and love for peace, and that they will give up the ways of conquest. There must be a changing there that will allow us to turn our hope into action.”

If you listened to just the audio of this speech there would be points where it seemed that maybe Reagan had lost his way, that there were awkward silences. But if you watch the video, it becomes apparent he is taking his time to pause deliberately, to seek out faces in the crowd - particularly those Rangers that crowd was there to honor. When I referred earlier to the great collaboration between speech writer and speaker, this is the part where a speaker is always on their own, and the “Great Communicator” is more than equal to the task. He is, in fact, its Master.

Notice, finally, that in the video Reagan constantly refers to index cards to prompt him along during the speech. Today that would most likely be a teleprompter. It seems as anachronistic as watching a P-51 Mustang fly into battle today. But both got the job done in their time.

Length (words): 1843
Text Posted: The History Place
Video Posted: Reagan Foundation

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom

Gettysburg

Speech By: Abraham Lincoln
Date: November 19, 1863
Location: Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Occasion: Dedication of National Cemetery

The Bully Pulpit has already covered the Gettysburg Address. But, since it deservedly resides on Time’s list of Top Ten speeches, it is worth another review. Besides, there is always more to say about this magnificent speech - little appreciated, by those who first heard it.

It is important to consider the context of this speech. Obviously, it was part of the dedication ceremony for the new national cemetery, on the site of the largest battle ever fought on the North American continent. But so much more was at stake than that.

President Lincoln was facing re-election in less than a year. No nation in history had ever been able to host a free election amidst a civil war. His prospects for success in that re-election effort seemed dim. He would prevail in that election, but no one listening knew that.

The battle had occurred on Union soil, because the Army of Northern Virginia had the ability to invade, putting Washington itself at risk. With the lense of historical perspective, we know the South would never again be able to invade North. But those in the crowd did not know that.

After the war, it became obvious that Gettysburg was the battle from which the South could never recover. Its losses over those three days of battle had been too severe. But no one on either side yet knew that.

All those uncertainties which plagued those who heard the Gettysburg address, are no longer apparent to us, in the clear light of historical knowledge.

Lincoln not only sought to address these uncertainties, as well as to honor the dead whose final resting place was being dedicated that day, he had the higher object of inspiring his people on to final victory.

For the first two years of the war, Lincoln had steadfastly maintained the issue was over secession - not slavery. In late 1862 Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect January 1, 1863. By November of that year, Lincoln, speaking at Gettysburg, no longer cast the bitter conflict between the states as a question of union versus secession, but as "a new birth of freedom." In his first sentence he pointed out the nation’s founding had been “dedicated to the proposition that all men are create equal.”

He proceeds with spare, yet masterfully descriptive language. He also uses classic speech techniques such as repetition, particularly in groups of three. “we can not dedicate...we can not consecrate...we can not hallow this ground.”

The phrase “we can not” serves the same purpose as bullets on a sheet of paper do for a reader - it warns of each important point that is about to be made. Notice also he uses “can not” as separate words rather than the more common cannot. The purpose is to make each syllable distinct as part of the emphasis.

As a final trick to capture the audience, Lincoln reverses the repetition technique in the final sentence, placing the repeated word at the end of each thought rather than at the beginning: “- and that government, of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Length (words): 267
Text Posted: Avalon Project - Gettysburg Address

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom

Gettysburg Address

Speech By: Abraham Lincoln
Date: November 19, 1863
Location: Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Occasion: Dedication of National Cemetery
Length (words): 267
Video Posted: None Available
Text Posted: Avalon Project - Gettysburg Address

Analysis:
The purpose of this initial post is to establish the format by which we will analyze all other speeches. Volumes have been written on the less than three hundred words of this speech, and this analysis does not endeavor to match them. Instead, it is to show, by way of a commonly familiar work, how we will assess newer speeches.

It should escape no one that this is one of the great political speeches of all time for a reason. Unlike most political speeches, Lincoln does not once engage in self-congratulation or bombast. He mentions neither his role as Commander in Chief, nor his place in the larger war effort. He immediately establishes a shared identity with his audience, "our fathers brought forth," and does so in biblical language, "Four score and seven years," immediately establishing his appeal to a higher set of ideals.

It is a work rich with imagery: "The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract." Without ever saying so, just by using the words "struggled," and "living and dead," Lincoln conveys that the consecration which took place here was in that holiest of all waters - blood.

This is also the time to put to rest one of the great "urban legends" surrounding this speech. It was not written on the back of an envelope. It is brief, but not that brief. It was, in fact, written on a piece of Executive Mansion stationery, and a second lined sheet of paper.

Text:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate...we can not consecrate...we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.


From The Bully Pulpit - Tom