Remembering the day

Tomorrow is a historic day

     June 6.  1944.  D Day.
     Allied forces went ashore along the Normandy coast of France, striking back at the forces of tyranny that clutched Europe's throat.
     Jackie and I have been to Normandy twice.  We have walked among the graves of the young men who gave their lives for the cause of freedom.  It is a somber place.
     I have walked along Omaha Beach.  As I walked in the sand, I tried to picture what an 18 or 19 year old boy from the Midwest encountered as that first wave went ashore.  Mortars going off, booby trapped obstacles, heavy machine gun fire from three directions.  It had to be a living hell.
     Yet these guys persevered.  They took the beaches, scaled the cliffs, and began the drive to free Europe from the Nazis.
     I can't imagine the bravery and  fear they felt that day.
    I recently finished reading a book about German soldiers on the beaches that day.  The book was a series of interviews done prior to the landings and then a follow up interview several years later.
     Several Germans said they believed by occupying France, they were saving Europe from the international banking community that was ruling and controlling the US and Britain.  Their leaders had told that lie so often that the lie became their truth.
     They were also told the Americans were not well equipped or prepared, another lie that disappeared when the troops landed and did not retreat.
     I sometimes forget that on both sides, young men died.  Mothers grieved.  Brothers were lost.  Young lives were not lived.
     Both sides suffered massive casualties and deaths that day.
     Yet the leaders of the world still think armies and wars are ways to solve problems.
     I guess it's foolish for me to think that after thousands of years of warfare, of killing millions of innocent children and adults, of maiming hundreds of thousands of people, of the billions and billions of dollars in damages a war causes.....I guess it's foolish of me to think that all of that loss would serve as a lesson to the world.
     Pause a moment tomorrow, June 6, and remember those young men who gave their all on the beaches at Normandy 74 years ago.
     And pray it never happens again.