Seventy-three Years Ago Today

[ER]

Seventy-three years ago today Allied soldiers, sailors, and airmen risked life and limb and undertook to liberate Europe from the grip of occupying forces headed by one of the most twisted and evil men the world has ever known, and in so doing thousands died, as would thousands more before a hard-won peace returned.

These men of so many nations, joined with the common goal of protecting the peoples and lands they loved, set out to expel Axis forces and bestow the gift of freedom onto those who on June 6, 1944 had existed for half a decade under the boot heel of oppression and insanity. These men left behind homes and families, friends and hobbies, careers and unfinished projects, sacrificing any definition of normality, because they were called to a mission that was bigger than any of them alone.

Those of us who have lived these seventy years in the world they won for us owe the World War Two generation more than we were ever able to re-pay while the majority of them were alive, and only rarely did most of us even pause to reflect on that debt. Now most of the relative few who left the safety of England and crossed the Channel into Normandy on June 6, 1944 are gone, but even so it is fitting that we pause at least a moment and honor their sacrifices, their bravery, their dedication, their ferocity, their almost superhuman conduct, that left all of us heirs to eight decades of hard-won freedom.

In their memory I say thank you.

[indianasmith]

Very well said!

[bob]

A big thank you to all who participated