D-Day. I’ve been imagining what it must have been like on this day 75 years ago. What they saw, what they felt and how much these young soldiers had to grow up within a span of a few minutes as they came onto that beach, jumping from the boats, racing to find any kind of shelter as bullets whizzed by their heads and bodies, watching their friends die next to them. I don’t know how they did it. I don’t know if I could do it. We owe them so much.
The images we have been seeing in photos, newsreels and interviews show war to be so heart-breakingly real. Yet most of us do not connect the dots into how precious and fragile our freedom truly is, or what people sacrificed so that we could be free. My Dad was in the Merchant Marines in WWII and he was just a kid, like so many of the D-Day veterans who are sharing their stories now. I can’t imagine what they saw and lived through. Yet the words they keep repeating is that they did their duty because it had to be done. They are true heroes.
I have been weeping as I watch the ceremonies, hearing the gunfire in my head, imagining their journeys. We have seen all those perfect rows of countless white crosses, each symbolizing a precious loss of life and its potential. Each cross signifies a human being whose story ended… for what? We are still fighting wars! How does that honor their sacrifices? We are still sending our youngest and bravest off to war, and their families are waiting, praying and hoping against hope that they will return home safely.
Thank you Dad. And thank you to all those lying under those white crosses. We must never stop bearing witness to what war really is. We must never forget what you, the Greatest Generation, did for us. I wish humans would learn that there is no winner in war, only in peace. 🙏❤️
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