To Touch The Face Of God

As events from the past get further and further from the present, it’s easy to forget all about them, and for the younger generations…well, they never knew about them, unless they learned about them in history class. In my opinion and the opinion of many conservatives, one of the greatest presidents of all time, was President Ronald Reagan. As a young man, I’m sure no one would have expected that he would even pe president. He was, after all, an actor, and not a politician. Nevertheless, he stepped out of that role, and became first the governor of California, and later the President of the United States, and it was at a pivotable time in history that he was the president.

Our nation was in the middle of the Cold War, which had really fired up in 1945, at the end of World War II, and continued on until 1991. During that time, we experienced the Iran Hostage Crisis on November 4, 1979, that lasted until January 20, 1981, spanning a total of 444 days. The hostage rescue finally came after President Reagan ordered it, when he became president. He was not afraid to act. He saw something that was unacceptable, and he remedied it…just hours after his inaugural speech. It shouldn’t have taken 444 days to free these hostages, but until President Reagan stepped in, there was just one attempt, and it failed. The 52 hostages felt forgotten, until President Reagan and the men he sent in, rescued them.

During President Reagan’s two terms in office, he worked tirelessly to change many things for the better. He hated tyranny, no matter what country it invaded. He looked at the Berlin Wall for what it was tyranny. Those people had been taken hostage and separated from their friends and family for long enough. In one of his most well-known speeches, President Reagan called for the tyranny to end, when on June 12, 1987, he challenged Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall,” which had long been a symbol of the repressive Communist era in a divided Germany. Of course, the wall didn’t come down immediately, and in fact, it wasn’t until November 9, 1989, that it actually came down.

President Reagan was at the helm when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded just 73 seconds after liftoff. It was a tragic event in the space program, and the people of this nation need to be consoled. President Reagan was just the man to give this nation the support it needed. His speech that day was supposed to have been the 1986 State of the Union speech, but President Reagan knew this was more important, so he delayed the State of the Union speech, and instead gave a speech to console us saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, I’d planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans. Today is a day for mourning and remembering.” He concluded his speech saying, “We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.'” President Reagan was truly a great president. President Reagan served two terms as president, from 1981 to 1989. He died on June 5, 2004, at age 93.