June 6, 1944

In spite of rough weather on the sixth of June 1944 Allied Commander, General Dwight Eisenhower, was counting on there being a narrow window of tamer waves and diminishing winds that would allow the invasion of Normandy to begin.  Code named Operation Overlord, this massive undertaking to liberate Western Europe from the horror of Hitler and his Nazis, would involve more than 5,000 ships and 156,000 troops delivered to the French coastline via the ingenious landing craft the "Higgins Boat" designed  by American patriot Andrew Higgins .  Though General Eisenhower had been warned that casualties could be as high as 75% among the combined U.S, U.K. and Canadian forces he knew that there would be no better time to surprise the Axis powers.  Fortunately the casualty count came nowhere near the feared 75% but 4,414 of the men who came ashore on June 6 paid for the rescue of the free world with their lives.

As I watched the ceremonies broadcast from those once bloody beaches I'm struck by the fact that less than 4% of U.S. WW II veterans are alive today.  Of those still with us all are now in their nineties and will soon join their missing brothers in arms.  It's sad to contemplate a world without the Greatest Generation.  Perhaps tempered by coming of age during the Depression, the men and women who saved Europe and the globe from Hitler and the Empire of Japan can never truly be thanked or repaid for their selfless commitment to something bigger than themselves.

The question that haunts me is this:  Could we do it again?  Is it possible only seventy-five years hence for America and the rest of the free world to come together to defeat an enemy bent on destroying our way of life?  Some days, when I'm sure that the answer is affirmative, I'll be confronted with some appalling tidbit of information pointing out how little younger Americans know about the greatest conflict in world history which resulted in approximately 70-85 million lost lives including over 400,000 United States citizens.   Young men, many still in their teens, volunteered by the thousands to do the right thing for their country and mankind less than a century ago.  Women too volunteered for duty both at home and overseas.

 Could we do it again?  In an age of safe spaces, trigger warnings, PC speech and not much history being taught in our schools, you have to wonder.  Today, especially, I'd like to think we could muster the stamina and courage to do whatever is required to save our republic and other freedom loving countries from the always plentiful supply of soulless tyrants and madmen.  We owe it to ourselves and to the boys, forever young, who now lie in neat rows below the crosses on the bluffs above the beach at Normandy.