It’s important to take some time out from our present day struggle with an invisible enemy to acknowledge the anniversary of our parents and grand parents charging the beaches of Normandy.
They landed on sands already soaked in the blood of their brothers in arms. They leapt out of the transport boats knowing the odds were high against returning to their homes, their families, their reasons for being here on the field of death.
Our world today came out of their sacrifice. The hundreds that never made it to the beach. The thousands of who never came home and lie beneath the foreign soil they died on. The thousands who came home with memories they would give anything to forget.
This world is born of that chaos, that savagery, fear and determination.
It is a lesson we need to acknowledge and to appreciate. I can hear my Uncle Lionel laugh and tell me, suck it up, kid. You’re not burying the kids you went to school with. You’re not fighting hand to hand with an enemy as determined to stay alive as you are.
He’s right, we won’t have those memories but we remember it happened and that the world survived.
And will again.
