41 Comments

I have been to the beaches, landing zones and cemetery in Normandy while on a visit to Paris. The ride by train and tour I took with my wife and teenage son at the time was in many ways the highlight of the week-long trip to France. Like visiting the USS Arizona, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington, it is hallowed ground. Impeccably maintained, I could not escape the reality of the thousands of lives cut short, who gave what Lincoln called the last full measure of devotion. It was an extraordinary and emotional moment for me. As I left the cemetery, I was compelled to stop, turn and look back at those grave markers row upon row and simply said quietly, “thank you boys. You helped save the world.” The visit should be a pilgrimage for every person that believes in Democracy. I am a lifelong history lover and passionate about the history of WWII in particular but I cannot recommend the visit and trip enough to anyone -- history buff or not!

Expand full comment

I lived in the UK with my family, 2 little boys, for five years when they were small. Able to visit the sites of battles, markers on buildings, learning how the US was revered following the war. Standing on ground where a cathedral was bombed, ruins left, graves nearby, St. Paul's American Memorial -- the same in France, but the visit to the beaches, to Normandy took me to my knees. There my Dad's stories became reality, and he, more than being my Dad, a sailor whose battleship came to the north of Africa as well as the South Pacific, became a hero, a very real hero with a heart touched by memories of loss and victory from a war that shaped his life and my Moms. This prayer is priceless - God, how we need prayers today in this country that has become unserious/dangerous.

Expand full comment
Jun 6, 2023Liked by Steve S

I have a friend who was a little girl living under German occupation and witnessed the sky full of paratroopers that day. She told me she thought they were angels coming to save her. They were.

Expand full comment

So today is my Birthday. I was born 11 years after D-Day. Growing up there was this mingling of my Birthday with D-Day. So I learned early about this day. Even now, when I woke up this morning, my first thought was Happy Birthday to me and the second thought was it’s D-Day.

Expand full comment
author

Happy birthday, Susan!

Expand full comment

Happy Birthday!

Expand full comment

Grass covers the indentations created by the blasts next to the remains of bunkers. I sat quietly on an outcropping away from the tourists to imagine the scene of Allied ships and troops coming closer to the beaches. The French have not forgotten that day and I hope we never will.

Expand full comment

And Steve Many including myself believe that it is now "Our" turn to fight and sacrifice for the good of our democratic freedom here at home and not on some foreign soil.

Our Democracy and very way of life will require all of our resolve and ability to muster every form of muscle and support in order for free men and women to defeat the fascist leaders of our enemy here in the next few months.

We must accomplish a vote that will deliver a "Super" majority to our next President who in my mind is our current President.

May the Force be with us in whatever religion or spiritual belief we cherish so that we all as brothers and sisters shall deliver the democratic victory for our future generations of people may not have to fight for freedom again.

Expand full comment

My mother would talk about World War ll and how young men would go directly from graduation to fight in the war. My father was one of those men, along with my uncles. They never talked about it and I unfortunately never thought to ask. After he past we found a scrapbook of pictures of my Dad as a very young man with his war buddies equally as young. Pictures of France, the forum and many other places that we weren't familiar with. My mom told us when they were engaged he showed her the scrapbook. It was very important to him.

Expand full comment

I traveled to the D-Day beaches last October while on a trip to France. It was an incredibly powerful and moving experience.

Expand full comment

I had the honour of standing on Juno Beach, assigned to the Canadian Armed Forces, on the 75th anniversary of D-Day, with a couple dozen of veterans (and the Prime Minister and other dignitaries) in attendance. The sense of awe the achievements of that day evoke still lingers.

I have also spoken at the cemeteries of Canadians who fell in the liberation of the Netherlands, many of whom had come ashore in Normandy that day, or fought their way across Italy. Each time I spoke of their achievements and the debt we owed them, I also spoke of how they would feel - knowing the threat of fascism was rising, again, in the nations they had fought and died for. #LestWeForget

Expand full comment

As a child of the 50’s, we often played WW II. It seems a bit strange I suppose. But the war was still fresh in our National memory. We would don helmets and gas masks our Fathers had brought home from war. We often memorialized D-Day, Sixth of June in our play. We didn’t realize the full scope of what that meant until we were older and it was taught in school. We were also exposed to movies about it as well. Parents didn’t talk about the War much. But we knew what an important day it was for the world. I don’t think many kids today know much about it. I still think of the men and women lost to that war. I try to respect those lost by never missing an opportunity to vote. Thank you for your article and the link to the statement by FDR. I think these are such important sacrifices to honor and remember.

Expand full comment

Thank you for remembering D-Day and the lives lost so man could remain free from the tyranny of fascism. D-Day and Guadalcanal are just a few examples of why my father's generation were considered the greatest generation of the modern Era. Their determination and sacrifice must be acknowledged and taught in schools so their achievements are not forgotten. When sacrifice is forgotten more lives will be lost in future wars.

Expand full comment
Jun 7, 2023·edited Jun 7, 2023Liked by Steve S

The poem below was written by my father just before he flew overseas as a ROG aboard a B17 in the infamous "Bloody 100th" Bomb Group, so named because of its enormous casualty rate. While not specifically about D Day, which came almost two years later, it likely captures the unconscious feelings of so many of those other young men who stormed ashore that day.

THE TRAIN FOR WAR

--------------------

Once before this night

ln those other growing nights

ln our millions of childhoods

Within a fluid land

We heard lost trains wheeling

On endless tracks,

Ships seeking perfect harbors

Along a teasing coast

Searching us for directions

Making questions that curved us

To bowstrings of listening in the dark

ln those growing nights before

This night

Our tuned ears pointing, hearing

The fluid land chime its asking

Speechless wonders.

And then the muting

The land flattening to the shape

Of our despairs

Losing its signals

Giving us nothing between

Those nights and this night

Except the steady sound of the years

Like loaded dice rolling us

At last to the harshest remembering,

To this guarding stupor against

A rising in the blood

Holding us still, cunningly

Saving us with dullness.

Until this night, this strangest night

This night destroying all our

Careful pride of bitterness

Ruining our hope of hopelessness

This night as we climb aboard

The train for war

As we listen once again

ln this asking night

ln this breathing wordless asking night

ln this land whose tracks are endless

Between the curve of Puget Sound

And Handy's Saint Louis Blues

ln this luring undiscovered land

That was always there

Beneath our longest winter, our dullest day

Hearing its groundbeat once again

Standing listening in this night

Before we climb aboard for war.

Saul Levitt

Expand full comment
author

Thank you for sharing this, Dan.

Steve

Expand full comment

Thanks for providing this unique forum to share these ideas.

Expand full comment

Bless you Steve

Expand full comment

My father was in Normandy. Thank ja, he came home.

The "Greatest Generation"!

Expand full comment

This morning as I listened to this retelling of the sacrifices laid down fighting fascism, I found myself weeping, crying then angry at the realization that today we are facing the stupidity of men and woman, (a few in particular) who seek to rekindle the hate and scourge of fascism..Actions must be taken to crush in it’s tracks that which would destroy what these heroes gave their lives for, not so many years ago..

There are too many looking through rose colored glasses believing that certain individuals are not working to tear down this country in an effort to turn it into that which was fought so hard to prevent.. A message must be sent and felt in very direct specific terms to those who would seek to burn down our freedoms and ideals..I feel it fitting to close these remarks with something I posted a short time ago on this very platform..

“There came a point where Lincoln knew that the efforts deploying reason and civility were no longer going to work..He took the necessary action to protect the Republic..We are being systematically attacked from within..When will the necessary actions be taken to crush this?”

Expand full comment

Lest we forget......🇺🇸🇬🇧🇨🇦

Expand full comment