I must stop and admit that I never understood the significance of D Day until today. After I shared the D Day picture, I actually googled "what is the significance of d day". I found out that it really is the big deal it is made to be. Maybe even bigger. It was THE turning point in WWII. It was basically when the allied forces took action and said, "The buck stops here" and sent troops in. Literally, dropped them off on the edge of Europe, on the beach at Normandy, France. This picture (and every other Normandy picture you've ever seen) is what young soldiers actually saw and experienced that day.
Later, a cousin of mine commented on the picture I shared, inquiring whether my grandma's brother (said cousin's uncle) was there that day. He had fought in WWII and had seen many important battles. Then, my grandma's sister commented that their brother was indeed there, he was only 19, and he was scared.
And then it meant something to me. These men were sons, brothers, friends, husbands, fathers. Maybe this wasn't "just part of the job" or "a day in history" or their idea of a "day at the beach". These were young men, they were terrified, they were far from home, and they were suddenly fighting a war. And one of them was my great uncle.
Can you imagine what it felt like to be there? Or what it felt like to have a loved one there? No internet with instant updates, no TV with nightly reports and images. Just a radio. No skyping or facetiming, no phone calls, just letters. How hard that must have been! Less certainty, more faith, more hope in the waiting.
The hubs and I were discussing D Day this evening and he mentioned how when his dad lived in Britain elderly folks would stop him in town and thank him for America's efforts in WWII. They remembered how ugly and scary things had gotten in England and how close they had come to being taken over by the Germans. They would tell my father-in-law that the only reason they were standing there that day was because of America. That's pretty humbling.
Humans have a way of romanticizing history. I'm not saying everything was better in 1944 (clearly everything wasn't better. It was WWII.) We don't have a history of having clean hands. Just ask the Native Americans. I don't think any country has a history of a clear conscience. But these days are especially alarming. With the National Security Administration and all their data-mining, drone operators being given report cards of how many people they kill (really, 1600+ killed by a single drone operator were ALL terrorists?), not to mention the IRS....things are getting ugly. And uncomfortable.
But today we remember all of the men who stormed the beach at Normandy- who were scared to death, but did it anyway. We remember the ones who lived to tell about it and the ones who didn't. We remember the sons, brothers, uncles, fathers, and husbands who changed the course of history and practically saved the world. We thank them for their service and honor them as great Americans.
This one's for you, Uncle Harold!
