When Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential elections, I thought Carter's foreign policy nested in strong moral values was over. I was wrong. Forty years ago on the anniversary of D-Day, Reagan spelled out America’s clear moral purpose — to stand against tyranny and for freedom.

As Peggy Noonan recalls, having worked on Reagan’s “Boys of Pointe du Hoc” speech delivered that day, it was a “plain-faced” speech that valorized Operation Overlord’s heroes simply by describing what they did. But, she writes, it was also a message to beleaguered Western leaders under pressure from domestic isolationism and Soviet expansionism alike: “he was telling them, between the lines: Hold firm and we will succeed.”

Forty years later, the ceremonies marking D-Day’s 80th........

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