We are blessed to live in a country filled with so many men and women willing to go beyond the call of duty, to accomplish great things for the benefit of their fellow citizen.  Each day, ordinary souls are called upon to perform extraordinary tasks.  Today, I rise to pay tribute to one of the greatest individuals of our time - President Ronald Reagan.

Like the WWII veterans honored last week during the dedication of the National WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C., and those honored this past Sunday on the 60th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, President Reagan was a great American, steadfast in his appointed duty, thorough in thought, long on compassion and short on vanity.

His love of freedom and embrace of optimism were virtues of many in the Greatest Generation.  Let us pray that our generation, and the generations to come, remember that freedom is a worthy cause.

I traveled to the beaches of Normandy this week, joining President Bush, Speaker Hastert, and others, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of D-Day.  During the ceremonies, I could not help but feel Reagan’s presence.

In his own speech on that shore twenty years ago, President Reagan said, “The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge - and pray God we have not lost it - that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest.”

President Reagan understood, like our WWII soldiers, that what they were doing was not to harm, but to help. That even though sacrifices would be made - the greater good was at stake and no price was too high.

In announcing that he had Alzheimer’s disease, Ronald Reagan said that he was beginning the journey that would lead him “into the sunset” of his life.  He said, “I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.”  Since 1994, Reagan had suffered the cruelty of Alzheimer’s.  So our sorrow today is tempered by the knowledge that the President has indeed gone to a better place - a place where he has a front row seat to watch all the bright dawns that lie ahead for America.

President Reagan is responsible for so many of those bright dawns that we have to look forward to.  He changed the world by living his convictions.  Not “clinging to” them or “sticking to” them, but living them.  Reagan’s core beliefs were exactly that.  They were at his core and were therefore part of his every action.

Reagan’s convictions gave him confidence.  He was a man of the people.  He listened.  And when he heard what the people needed, he took action, in accordance with his convictions.  On the domestic front, the people said they were tired of their economy spiraling downward, so Reagan worked to reverse that trend.

To accomplish these feats, President Reagan was not afraid to take hard stances.  But he also knew that these changes would take bipartisan efforts.  We should all remember, respect, and try to live up to Reagan’s model of bipartisanship.  His efforts to change America were based upon his philosophy and beliefs-not upon any partisan gamesmanship.

On foreign policy, Americans said they were tired of living in fear, so Reagan worked to bring security.  President Reagan engineered the end of the decades-long Cold War.  Because of his policies, and his faith that freedom would prevail, our children and grandchildren are not growing up with the constant fear of mutual destruction.  We all are able now to live in a world that, though still imperfect, strives toward peace, works for justice and rejects tyranny.

I call upon my colleagues to remember Reagan’s strength.  Remember him as he was while in office.  In his final radio address as president, on January 14, 1989, Reagan said, “The hope of human freedom, the quest for it, the achievement of it, is the American saga.”  Reagan’s hope, his quest, and all his achievements - those are what we all honor and remember.

Now, too, the Great Communicator, has gone the way of so many of our greatest generation.  I rise not only in sadness for his passing, but more importantly in celebration of his life, his accomplishments and his deeds.  I rise to pay tribute to President Reagan in the words he used to honor the crew of the Challenger Space Shuttle in 1986 - “we will never forget him, nor the last time we saw him, as he prepared for the journey, waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God.”