En Garde in the bunker…
On June 6, 1944, yours truly had been on the planet for a full 199 days, having been born the previous November 20, 1943. The world in those days was very different to what it is today. Severely-so. But The Greatest Generation was about to make its debut upon the global stage.
While I did whatever a 199-day-old baby does during the day of June 6th (cry, mostly?!), over in France across the English Channel 18, 19, and 20-year old boys and young men were storming the beaches on D-Day, facing certain death to save the world from Hitler’s Facism. In addition to family members who had been active in the earlier WWI, others were also involved in WWII, including father, uncles, and other extended family acquaintances. Including aunts. Greatest Generation, all.
Which is why it’s so, so important to preserve their memories and history. Not just to honor them but to make sure they’re not forgotten and end up as statistics in history books years from now. The Greatest Generation needs to be long remembered.
The hellhole of Normandy beaches D-Day 1944 … Brave warriors..
The sacrifices these young men (and women) made, and the horrific reality they faced, not only during D-Day, but throughout the entire war, need to be remembered forever. They changed the world; which is why they’re referred to as The Greatest Generation.
During those days, believe it or not, there was a strong, virtuous American culture that mobilized and saved the world from oppression, and not just during World War II but also in overcoming the equally horrid Soviet Union in the ensuing Cold War of the 1960s through to its demise orchestrated by President Reagan in 1989.
The very fact that the United States as we know it exists seems little short of Divine Intervention. Consider these snippets of history. 1) The fog that allowed Washington and his army to escape the British at the Battle of Long Island; 2) The defense of Little Round Top during the battle of Gettysburg; 3) The Eisenhower decision to cancel June 5 due to inclement weather and cue the Normandy landings for June 6.
Dallas’ gem, 93-year-young William Murchison, today’s American Spectator and ‘The Longest Day Revisited’…
In my capacity as a certified, government-inspected old coot, I have taken particular interest in the bubbling excitement over the 75th anniversary of D-Day. It takes me back — not to D-Day itself, when I was in knee pants, but to the 18th anniversary thereof in 1962. Darryl Zanuck’s The Longest Day brought to stirring cinematic life on that occasion Cornelius Ryan’s D-Day book of the same title.
I still find great satisfaction in Zanuck’s film, but here’s what I remember about 1962. We — well, a lot of us — who went to see it wore coat and tie or heels. It seemed the thing to do. As the house lights went down, the sound system roused us with “The Star-Spangled Banner” — the real one, with trumpets and drums and no swaying hyper-inflected nightclub singers. We in the house rose as one, with hands over hearts. Many sang. It was a big deal, in keeping with the occasion celebrated and the sacrifice required to liberate Europe from evil.
By coincidence, the other day, I learned from the New York Times the present locus of evil in the world. Times columnist Maureen Dowd identified the attorney general of the United States, William Barr, as the “perfect villain” of the Mueller report saga. More than a mere villain, it seems: “devious-devising,” “crooked-counseling” and, at the end of the day, “diabolical.”
I stared at that last one. I continue to stare. Barr, by Dowd’s account, is diabolical, as if glowering before a Salem tribunal. He revealed his horns, it appears, in his hourlong CBS interview with Jan Crawford last week. We were hungering — weren’t we? — for an account of Donald Trump’s knavery. What did we get? Barr’s insistence that evidence didn’t support unconstitutional behavior on the president’s point. Grrrrrr. Snarl.
Read to completion through link at bottom…
American Forces Cemetery, Normandy…
We the People of the United States are part of a nation whose very existence is owed to the small blessings of God.
Try to imagine today’s campus snowflakes at Omaha Beach or Pointe du Hoc on the early morning of June 6 1944. I know. Crazy.
Does one have to be a conspiracy theorist to suspect that the turning of men into wusses is a deliberate strategy, directed by fellow-travelers of this ‘he is a she, and shim is a her’, and can’t we all just become what we want?
Tragedy.
Those who react to the sight of the Stars and Stripes by running to a campus safe space, there to be comforted by teddy bears, puppies, and juice boxes are utterly incapable of defending that flag.
1944: 18 and 19-year-old’s storm the beach on D-Day, facing certain death to save the world from Fascism and slavery.
2019: 18 and 19-year-old’s need safe spaces, coloring books and cry rooms because ‘words hurt’ and God knows, they just decided to be Shim instead of him, and female athletes instead of males.
What a country, huh?
We owe so much to The Greatest Generation that preserved our future by horrifically changing theirs. ‘Thank you’ can seem so inadequate, except it be heartfelt and poignant in realization and appreciation. Coming from a family full of that generation, I can honestly tell you that little 199-days-old baby doing what God only knows on that most auspicious of mornings, is thankful both to his Creator for giving him and preserving his life, and those brave and mighty souls who laid down theirs for his.
Semper Fi!
And on that note, time for today’s MAGA Pill – Warrior-president Donald J. Trump – MAGA!
*************************
William Murchison, American Spectator: The Longest Day Revisited
