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Friday, June 6, 2014

Remembering D-Day 70 Years Later



American Cemetery Normandy overlooking Omaha Beach



I know I have posted something like this before, but it is worth saying it again. Today is the 70th anniversary of D-Day, when the Allies landed at Normandy, the first step in liberating France and pushing their way to Germany.

Any American who visits France should make the effort to visit Omaha Beach and the American cemetery which overlooks it.  As you make the walk down the bluff from the cemetery to the beach, you can visualize the American soldiers fighting their way up the very path you are taking down. It is haunting. As for the cemetery itself, as you walk among those headstones, be they crosses or Stars of David, you come to realize that these brave men died for a reason and for a great cause.

Given the shock, the sadness and the anger many of us are feeling over the Bowe Bergdahl story, I guess D-Day could not have come at a better time.

4 comments:

Siarlys Jenkins said...

You mean, we can set aside this sordid little controversy for one day, and unite in honoring those who gave their lives fighting the Nazis?

Or did you mean to use these graves as a backdrop for your petty political sniping?

I'm hoping the former. I could easily believe the former. But sometimes I'm not sure Gary Fouse is incapable of the latter.

Squid said...

Siarlys,

My father was with the 2nd Division which stepped on to Omaha Beach on June 7th. The carnage that he saw would not allow him to express his horror. He said that the D-Day in "Saving Sargent Ryan" did not come close. He and his Division liberated the important port of Brest, liberated St. Vith on the Roer river, went on to the Ardennes and the Elsenborn Ridge (the German tanks where everywhere), on to Antwerp (the battle of the Bulge), and on to Remagen Bridge, finally ending up in Czechoslovakia freeing the town of Pilsen.
These me are heros, not the scummy little deserter , praised by Obama and Rice.

Squid

Siarlys Jenkins said...

I was right with you Gary, until at the end you besmirched your father's memory by using his service to score a petty political point on which not even half the facts are in yet.

Siarlys Jenkins said...

Oops, that was Squid's father. But the same response applies.