Obama's D-Day
On June 6, 1944 the United States and its allies launched the largest air and sea armada in world history. The purpose of this mission was clear: liberate Europe from the grip of Nazi despotism.
The landings on the Normandy beaches were successful because of the unprecedented sacrifice among the landing forces. American soldiers leaving their amphibious landing crafts measured their life expectancy in minutes. In the first hour of battle hundreds lost their lives and in succeeding waves thousands were killed as the beaches at Omaha and Utah were soaked with the blood of young men in their teens and early twenties.
At Pointe du Hoc, Army Rangers scaled the sheer cliffs on rope ladders. When one was killed by German bullets another stepped on the precarious rungs. Of the 224 Rangers who scaled those cliffs only 90 survived, but as historians observed rarely in history has there been such a display of courage, fortitude and sacrifice.
This was the beginning of a great epoch in history that led ultimately to the defeat of Hitler’s Germany. But history has a way of describing the big picture and leaving out the tales of individual bravery by young men who a year or two earlier were playing high school basketball, working on a farm or applying to college. History called their number and they responded. Tom Brokaw called them “America’s greatest generation.”
It is hard to know if they made history or history demanded heroic deeds from them. Perhaps it was a little of both. But standing in the cemetery at the Normandy Beach and observing row after row of those who gave their lives for a cause greater than themselves, I am humbled by those who died so future generations could live freely.
There is another thought that crossed my mind in this crowded necropolis. I don’t understand how anyone, much less the president of the United States, could apologize for American actions abroad in the last century or this one. With all the mistakes and miscalculations, there has never been a force for good more notable than the United States’ military.
You owe it to their memory to read the rest. It is truly outstanding.
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