Today, the 65th anniversary of the invasion of Europe on beaches of Normandy, is a reflective one. When I was a boy, in the 1960s, the invasion of Europe still hadn't happened very long ago -- less than 20 years -- yet today, the memory is fading. Europe has changed; America has changed; the world has changed.In 1944, America was so much better united than it is today. Back then, young men were willing to fight Germany (and Japan) and give their lives for the concept of freedom, on a continent 3,000 miles away fighting an enemy that had not invaded us. Back then, liberating countries for freedom's sake alone was not controversial; political parties did not split over the concept that America had a duty to the world. Many of us have grown up with, or met over the years, refugees or the descendants of refugees, who came to America and proclaimed that they would rather be free yet poor, than rich and a slave. Having grown up in Los Angeles, a melting pot city, I heard this story as a boy from naturalized Americans from countries across the globe -- Jewish, Polish, Hungarian, Filipino, Russian, and Chinese. These people were eternally grateful that America intervened in a global war in two theaters; that America sacrificed 400,000 lives fighting two enemies because of a precipitating event costing 3,000 lives.
I'm not certain that freedom is as central to the American spirit today, nor to the desires of other peoples around the world. Those of us who still believe that freedom trumps everything else -- everything -- are perhaps old-fashioned, or a dying breed. Hopefully not.
But the June 6th, 1944 sacrifice of those men who died for the freedom of people they did not know, and fought enemies that did not attack us, will never be forgotten. Across America, England, Canada, and other free countries, church bells rang and people flocked to churches to pray for victory and, ultimately, peace WITH freedom, albeit a costly one. Back then, we understood that freedom is not free, and that we can't be the land of the free if we are afraid to be the home of the brave.
Americans had guts in 1944. General Eisenhower's order of the day to the paratroopers was, "Full victory -- nothing else."
But we as a nation were reverent as well. All of America listened to these (excerpted) words from their leader, Franklin Roosevelt.
My Fellow Americans:
[Our sons] will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest -- until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war ...
For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home ...
And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be ...
And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keeness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment -- let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose ...
Franklin D. Roosevelt - June 6, 1944
Remember those who sacrificed so much so that today, their children and grandchildren can live free.
