D-Day

Today I’m not going to talk about writing.  I want to talk about an often-forgotten event marked by today.  When I mention it to people I get one of two answers.  Either they tell me they didn’t know it was today or worse, they have never heard of the event.  I am of course referring to D-Day.  On June 6th in 1944 the Allied forces under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower made an amphibious landing in Normandy on the coast of France.  Hundreds of thousands of men attacked Hitler’s Atlantic Wall.  The defenses included water obstacles, mines, land mines, artillery and “pill boxes” which were concrete bunkers with machine gunners in them.  They were spaced to have interlocking fields of fire to cover the whole beach.  Landing craft after landing craft disembarked into this raging hell and were trapped on the beach.  Loses were heavy.  As a society, we are upset by loses in places like Iraq over the years of war.  Imagine losing more people than that in a morning!  The blood colored the surf red.  Thanks to some heroic men the pill boxes were destroyed and the artillery was knocked out.  At home in America the Liberty Bell rang in Philadelphia.  People crowded churches to pray for their loved ones in the operation.  It was the hard-won toe hold on the continent of Europe that would be the beginning of the end of Hitler’s Germany.  It was one of the largest and bloodiest battles in U.S. history and yet people don’t remember or even know about it.  Had things not gone the Allies way that day, the world may look much different today.  So remember today.  Remember those who fell.  The Allies deserve at least a passing thought on this reverent day.