LOS ANGELES (June 6) - Ronald Reagan, the cheerful crusader who devoted his presidency to winning the Cold War, trying to scale back government and making people believe it was "morning again in America," died Saturday after a long twilight struggle with Alzheimer's disease.
May he rest in peace.
Former President Ronald Reagan Dies at 93
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The following are not my own words, but they reflect my feelings so well that I'll share them here anyway...
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O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!
There is nothing of eloquence or poetry I can write about Ronald Reagan.
Nothing others have not already written or thought or felt.
I have only the grief and gratitude of the witnessing of a great life lived and lost. The singular honor of growing through young adulthood in an era when nobility was known.
There are men of history, and he was one.
The Lincoln of his day, who saved not the Republic, but the faith of the Republic. Who fought slave masters not at home, but across the seas. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, and he trampled out the vintage where the grapes of wrath were stored.
In Berlin, and in Moscow, and in Warsaw.
And Ronald Reagan was his servant.
Like Ronald Reagan was my master. The anchor in the chain of command. The commander in chief of my Army days, the leader and philosopher of my salad days, the advisor and former of my current days.
The man who taught me how to be an American.
Who reminded the world what liberty was, what America stood for, what freedom was worth. Who stood at the gates of oppression and demanded they be torn down and destroyed. He stormed his own Normandy beach, on the bulwark of communism, and bought peace through the preparation for war.
He told a nation that held air-raid drills to get up off its knees, and pushed back the nuclear threat, and called an evil empire what it was. Liberty is from God, oppression is from the Devil. And the Soviets fell on their own pitchfork.
Right makes might, and Ronald Reagan stood tall in that might, unafraid and undaunted, in the face of the world. We are a city on a hill, set up as an example to all mankind, not for our benefit, but for the its. We are the leaders of the world, and Ronald Reagan wasn?t afraid to say it or do it.
We believe that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. All men. Ukrainians, East Germans, Russians, Poles, Latvians and Lithuanians. The two most powerful nations in the history of the world stood eyeball to eyeball for a generation and Ronald Reagan made the other side blink.
By showing them the weakness of their soul and the rightness of ours, by exhausting their economy and might in a contest with ours, by extending the hand of friendship and respect. Ronald Reagan took off Europe?s chains, but he left it its pride. And in the end it wasn?t Ronald Reagan who marched against the Kremlin, or organized the shipyards of Gdansk, but it was he who inspired those deeds and the patriots who did them.
He was a free man, and he called to the world to likewise be free.
And we heard and answered, here and abroad. Liberty for them and liberty for us.
Because at home he freed us from malaise and discouragement, from the sinister belief that we ? we Americans ? were ordinary or cynical. That this Republic ? based on liberty and the individual ? was routine or spent.
He freed us from that all.
And he reminded us what our ancestors fought for and our grandparents knew and we had forgotten ? that the people were the master and the government was the servant. That tax was our enemy and regulation our foe, that our word must be our bond and virtue our watchword.
He reminded us to be good and to do good, to be confident but humble, firm but respectful, to work and to dream.
Ronald Reagan was a great man and a great president, for what he said and how he said it, and for the fire he lit in our hearts. For unraveling the Iron Curtain and winning the Cold War without firing a shot. For changing the very nature of the world. For improving the very fiber of America. For reminding us that the course of this Republic is ever upward, and that our deeds and aspirations must reflect that, and be worthy of that.
I?m grateful to have been alive to see the presidency of Ronald Reagan. And I hope I never forget the things he taught or the example he set. And I hope in the scope of my ability and opportunity that I can do the same ? that I can be as firm a believer in this country as he was, and that I can be as certain an encourager of its citizens as he was.
I will honor his patriotism and love of liberty by matching them. I will respect his memory by furthering his cause ? the American cause ? the cause of freedom.
He led a revolution, and it changed the world, and we can never let it go back. At home, or abroad. We are free men borne, and we must free men live.
The way he did.
There was a giant in our day, and now he has gone to rest. A hero for the ages.
O Captain! my Captain!
- by Bob Lonsberry ? 2004
----------------------------------------------------------------
O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!
There is nothing of eloquence or poetry I can write about Ronald Reagan.
Nothing others have not already written or thought or felt.
I have only the grief and gratitude of the witnessing of a great life lived and lost. The singular honor of growing through young adulthood in an era when nobility was known.
There are men of history, and he was one.
The Lincoln of his day, who saved not the Republic, but the faith of the Republic. Who fought slave masters not at home, but across the seas. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, and he trampled out the vintage where the grapes of wrath were stored.
In Berlin, and in Moscow, and in Warsaw.
And Ronald Reagan was his servant.
Like Ronald Reagan was my master. The anchor in the chain of command. The commander in chief of my Army days, the leader and philosopher of my salad days, the advisor and former of my current days.
The man who taught me how to be an American.
Who reminded the world what liberty was, what America stood for, what freedom was worth. Who stood at the gates of oppression and demanded they be torn down and destroyed. He stormed his own Normandy beach, on the bulwark of communism, and bought peace through the preparation for war.
He told a nation that held air-raid drills to get up off its knees, and pushed back the nuclear threat, and called an evil empire what it was. Liberty is from God, oppression is from the Devil. And the Soviets fell on their own pitchfork.
Right makes might, and Ronald Reagan stood tall in that might, unafraid and undaunted, in the face of the world. We are a city on a hill, set up as an example to all mankind, not for our benefit, but for the its. We are the leaders of the world, and Ronald Reagan wasn?t afraid to say it or do it.
We believe that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. All men. Ukrainians, East Germans, Russians, Poles, Latvians and Lithuanians. The two most powerful nations in the history of the world stood eyeball to eyeball for a generation and Ronald Reagan made the other side blink.
By showing them the weakness of their soul and the rightness of ours, by exhausting their economy and might in a contest with ours, by extending the hand of friendship and respect. Ronald Reagan took off Europe?s chains, but he left it its pride. And in the end it wasn?t Ronald Reagan who marched against the Kremlin, or organized the shipyards of Gdansk, but it was he who inspired those deeds and the patriots who did them.
He was a free man, and he called to the world to likewise be free.
And we heard and answered, here and abroad. Liberty for them and liberty for us.
Because at home he freed us from malaise and discouragement, from the sinister belief that we ? we Americans ? were ordinary or cynical. That this Republic ? based on liberty and the individual ? was routine or spent.
He freed us from that all.
And he reminded us what our ancestors fought for and our grandparents knew and we had forgotten ? that the people were the master and the government was the servant. That tax was our enemy and regulation our foe, that our word must be our bond and virtue our watchword.
He reminded us to be good and to do good, to be confident but humble, firm but respectful, to work and to dream.
Ronald Reagan was a great man and a great president, for what he said and how he said it, and for the fire he lit in our hearts. For unraveling the Iron Curtain and winning the Cold War without firing a shot. For changing the very nature of the world. For improving the very fiber of America. For reminding us that the course of this Republic is ever upward, and that our deeds and aspirations must reflect that, and be worthy of that.
I?m grateful to have been alive to see the presidency of Ronald Reagan. And I hope I never forget the things he taught or the example he set. And I hope in the scope of my ability and opportunity that I can do the same ? that I can be as firm a believer in this country as he was, and that I can be as certain an encourager of its citizens as he was.
I will honor his patriotism and love of liberty by matching them. I will respect his memory by furthering his cause ? the American cause ? the cause of freedom.
He led a revolution, and it changed the world, and we can never let it go back. At home, or abroad. We are free men borne, and we must free men live.
The way he did.
There was a giant in our day, and now he has gone to rest. A hero for the ages.
O Captain! my Captain!
- by Bob Lonsberry ? 2004
Aren't you the guy who hit me in the eye?
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Mr. Potatoe Head
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We are going to put aside our regular school lessons tomorrow (we did tomorrow's lessons today). I think that it will be good for the kids to see how our nation honours him. They got to see the casket on the caisson and the riderless horse on Wednesday. Is anyone else going to watch the funeral?
Onward and Upward!
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ElfDude
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I'll be at work, but I'll listen to it on the radio.awip2062 wrote:We are going to put aside our regular school lessons tomorrow (we did tomorrow's lessons today). I think that it will be good for the kids to see how our nation honours him. They got to see the casket on the caisson and the riderless horse on Wednesday. Is anyone else going to watch the funeral?
Aren't you the guy who hit me in the eye?
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Kares4Rush
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Death Rattle
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