http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=38654
The American Presidency Project
Ronald Reagan
XL President of the United States: 1981 - 1989
Radio Address to the Nation on Armed Forces Day and Defense Spending
May 18, 1985
My fellow Americans:
Not too long ago one of our Ambassadors visited an American armored cavalry regiment stationed on the NATO line in Germany. As he returned to his helicopter, he was followed by a young 19-year-old trooper. The trooper asked him if he could get a message to the President. Well, the Ambassador said that sometimes getting messages to the President was part of his job. And the young trooper then said, "Will you tell him we're proud to be here, and we ain't scared of nothin."
Well, not long ago the Ambassador was in Washington and told me the sequel to that incident. I'd repeated a story in a talk that was carried on our Voice of America radio program, and there in that base in Germany the young trooper heard the broadcast and knew that I'd received his message. His commanding officer said that he ran down the company street yelling: "The system works! The system works!"
Well, the system does work, but not just because Ambassadors can get messages from a 19-year-old trooper to the President. Our system—this way of life we call democracy and freedom—really works because of the dedicated Americans like that GI in Germany, who've always been willing to defend our way of life from foreign aggressors—from those who do not love freedom and seek to destroy it.
