This week, you have an opportunity to help create a great new tradition of patriotism.
This week, you have the chance to show your commitment to the young men and women who are risking their lives for America.
This week, all of us in the Winning the Future community should contact our local radio stations with this message: Make June 6 - the anniversary of D-Day - a national day of prayer and commitment to our troops by playing Franklin Delano Roosevelt's extraordinary address to the nation hours after our troops stormed the beaches at Normandy.
TODAY'S ACTION ITEM:
CALL YOUR LOCAL RADIO STATION AND URGE THEM TO BROADCAST FDR'S PRAYER ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF D-DAY, JUNE 6. FOR CONTACT NUMBERS AND FOR MORE DETAILS, CLICK HERE.
Roosevelt's D-Day address was much more than a speech. It was a prayer - a prayer that said a lot about America.
It showed that we can be united in faith.
That we can do everything we can to support our troops.
That a President - any President, of any party - can have deeply held religious beliefs and express them publicly.
And that when it really matters - as we have in the past and should in the future - Americans turn to God for courage and guidance.
For Today's Liberals, an Inconvenient Truth: FDR Confronted Evil With Faith
Franklin Roosevelt was the most successful liberal Democrat of the 20th Century. But today, many liberals would be shocked to discover that when the United States and her allies began the liberation of Europe by landing at Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, President Roosevelt went on national radio and led the American people in six minutes of prayer for our young men who were risking their lives to save our freedoms.
That's right. For the liberals today who don't understand what is at stake in Iraq, FDR would normally be their guiding light, if it weren't for this inconvenient truth: Roosevelt understood that there was evil in the world. And he understood that it was the moral duty of the United States of America to defeat that evil.
So when things grew tough at Guadalcanal, when there were great difficulties in North Africa, when there was enormous frustration in the battle of the North Atlantic, Roosevelt knew that the job of a free people was to find more resources, to acquire more courage, to innovate in more ways, and to never flinch - to never contemplate a Congress legislating defeat - but instead to be sure that the cause of freedom would win.
And he appealed to our faith as a nation to do it.
'In This Poignant Hour, I Ask You to Join With Me in Prayer'
The following is Roosevelt's prayer, in its entirety (to listen, click here):
"My Fellow Americans:
"Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our Allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.
"And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:
"Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.
"Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.
"They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.
"They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest - until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.
"For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.
"Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.
"And for us at home - fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them - help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.
"Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.
"Give us strength, too - strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.
"And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.
"And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment - let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.
"With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace - a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.
"Thy will be done, Almighty God.
"Amen."
Contact Your Radio Station and Ask Them to Play FDR's Prayer This June 6
We should reach out to every American of every party and ask them to listen carefully to FDR's prayer. And then we should ask our fellow Americans to look into their hearts and answer these questions:
Don't you want the young men and women who are risking their lives for you to have every resource and every opportunity to defeat those who would kill us and end our civilization?
Don't you want America to come together in strength and in prayer to confront and defeat evil, rather than retreat in weakness and in doubt?
Help start a new patriotic tradition by clicking here.
Making Sure That Next Time, Terrorists SUCCEED in Attacking Fort Dix
In other news, I know you have all been closely following the goings on with the disastrous immigration bill concocted by the Senate and the White House. But you won't believe what the Senate did last week.
Remember the 75 reasons to oppose the immigration bill I listed in last week's "Winning the Future"? The 75 separate run-ins the three illegal immigrants who were arrested for plotting the terrorist attack on Fort Dix had with local law enforcement without being reported to federal immigration authorities?
The Senate last week voted to virtually guarantee that some future group of terrorist plotters who have entered the United States illegally will also go unreported by local law enforcement - and the next time, they may succeed in their plans to kill Americans.
The Senate Should Vote Again to Close the 'Sanctuary City' Loophole
Republican Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota introduced an amendment to the immigration bill to close the gaping hole in our national security created by so-called "sanctuary cities." These are cities where officials have foolishly decided to forbid their local law enforcement from inquiring about the immigration status of individuals they arrest and from reporting those here illegally to federal officials.
The Coleman Amendment wouldn't have required local police to use their own resources to enforce the federal laws or to conduct immigration raids. It simply would have required them to share information on the immigration status of suspects in order to help keep all of us safer. As we saw in the Fort Dix case, in a post-9/11 world, local suspects can be terrorists that threaten all of us.
Sen. Coleman's amendment was defeated in the Senate by the narrowest of margins, 49-48. But two senators who could have changed the outcome of the vote - Republicans Sam Brownback of Kansas and Craig Thomas of Wyoming - missed the vote.
Sen. Coleman should reintroduce his amendment and the Senate should vote again - with Senators Brownback and Thomas present this time. The danger posed by so-called "sanctuary cities" is too high not to try again.
P.S. - Great news! My new novel with Bill Forstchen, Pearl Harbor, will debut Sunday, June 3, at No. 7 on the New York Times fiction list. Thank you to everyone who made this possible. I'm writing to you this week from Hawaii, where I'm doing some events to promote Pearl Harbor and also teaming up with Sean Hannity and Oliver North to raise money for our troops and their families. My most heartfelt thanks to everyone who has come out and supported us.
To find out more about Pearl Harbor, Click Here. Remember, it makes a great Father's Day gift.
P.P.S. - Solutions Day is only 119 days away! On September 27 and 29, my organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future, will reach out across the country in a series of online workshops to fundamentally change our future. Already, 1,921 (from all 50 states) have signed up to participate and 879 Americans have volunteered to host workshops. You can still be a part of this exciting wave of change. Just visit americansolutions.com to sign up today.
