Forty years ago this week, President Reagan invaded Grenada. It turned out to be a major victory against Cuba’s Fidel Castro that prevented the Soviets from having another strategic piece of real estate.

Grenada was a small island where some U.S. citizens were attending medical school. Most people had never heard of Grenada or the Cuban efforts to turn the island into a communist beachhead, an important runway for Soviet MiGs.

However, the Reagan administration had their eye on Grenada for some time. They knew the strategic importance of Grenada and its proximity to the Panama Canal.

We learned a lot that week about President Reagan and how foreign policy can force itself on the agenda. In Beirut, we were introduced to the type of terrorism that we saw eventually on 9/11. In Grenada, we saw President Reagan as the competent leader of the free world, or a man unwilling to let the USSR gain a strategic foothold over here.