D-Day + 79: ‘We Should Thank God Such Men Lived’

 

In the summer of 2019, I was blessed with the experience of a lifetime — a tour titled “D-Day to the Rhine.” It brought us to the beaches of Normandy, where the fate of the free world was saved from the savage butchery of fascism by the largest and most complicated amphibious assault ever attempted in history. Below are a few photos I took on that incredible day, along with a few thoughts about how much we owe those men of the Greatest Generation. We should, indeed, every day of our life, “thank God such men lived.”

To personally walk on Utah Beach – with Old Glory and the French Tricolor prominently flying over the many monuments – was an experience I genuinely wish every American citizen could experience as there is no other way to have even a glimmer of recognition of what those men faced that day.

To stand on Omaha Beach- to experience the sheer size of the area these men of limitless bravery and courage had to face under withering fire from above- was one of the most moving experiences of my entire life.

To stand on the peak of Pointe du Hoc, where Rudder’s Rangers scaled that cliff under machine gun fire, was one of the most humbling sensations one could ever feel- a sense of inexpressible gratitude for what those men did for the cause of freedom.

It is most fitting that on this day, 79 years after these men saved us from the jackboots of fascism, we remember them and pray for their eternal rest.

Giving Thanks This D-Day - Imgflip

Published in General
This post was promoted to the Main Feed by a Ricochet Editor at the recommendation of Ricochet members. Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 9 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. David C. Broussard Coolidge
    David C. Broussard
    @Dbroussa

    That is a place, like Gettysburg, that every American should see. I want to see Parl Harbor and the Arizona because I think it is similar. Ground Zero has the same feeling, but different because those were civilians. 

    • #1
  2. Ekosj Member
    Ekosj
    @Ekosj

    Compare and contrast with the opinion of a formerly famous Dem hero…

    • #2
  3. She Member
    She
    @She

    Per my late, great, darling Auntie Pat, on June 6, 2019, the 75th anniversary commemoration:

    I just got off the phone with her and–shameless self-promotion alert–she’ll be 96 next month, and is my Dad’s last surviving sibling. I phoned her because yesterday was the 75th anniversary of the day Dad happened to the Pope (another one). I had in mind to ask her about something else, and as a result was taping the conversation (as she knows I sometimes do). And in the course of our chat, she mentioned that she’d been enjoying the D-Day commemorative exercises on the television, and that Donald Trump had been visiting the UK.

    “Oh, yes,” I said. And he seems to have done pretty well, don’t you think?” And here’s how it went from there:

    Auntie Pat: Well, yes. Except for those stupid people stomping about waving things. Makes me furious, because, you know, they’re all sitting pretty because of the fact that America came into the war. If it hadn’t been for the Americans, we shouldn’t be here.

    She: Right.

    Auntie Pat: Well, it’s true.

    She: Yes, I know.

    Auntie Pat: We had not enough troops. I mean, there’s no argument about it. It makes me very cross. I mean, here’s the elected member of the, umm, society, and so he should be treated with respect. He may say stupid things sometimes, but he read quite a nice thing actually, which was quite good, and he did very well, and he’s coming home tomorrow, isn’t he?

    Auntie Pat was 20 on 6 June 1944, and what she has to say about that, and everything else, is always worth listening to. I wish there was a way to bottle her and keep her, and her memories, with us forever. (I’m doing my best here, thanks for bearing with me.)

    Like many baby boomers, I grew up in the shadow of the greatest generation, with first hand accounts not only from the troops, but also of what it was like when every member of the population on the home front actually was “war-weary” and suffering privation of one sort or another along with them. It wasn’t an occasional, or a particular, or an incidental, or a boutique war which affected only those intimately involved with it. It was a monumental, existential, all-encompassing, shattering grind. I’ve always thought that one of Pat’s most cogent and heart-rending comments (sorry, yet another one, I’ve been here almost thirteen years, and I’m extraordinarily verbally facile) was that the ten years of continued rationing in the almost-destroyed Britain after the war was over was even worse than the war itself–“Well, you see,” she said, “there was no point. After all, we’d already won. Nothing we did helped or make a difference any more. It was just a miserable slog.”

    Yet it was a miserable slog they embraced and survived. As you do. Or as you used to. When people believed that the world revolved around something other than themselves, and that even though they couldn’t see the point right then, perhaps there was one after all.

    And so, here I am to make it for her.

    United States of America, Auntie Pat (top row, second from right) thanks you.

    And so do I.

     

    • #3
  4. Bunsen Coolidge
    Bunsen
    @Bunsen

    David C. Broussard (View Comment):

    That is a place, like Gettysburg, that every American should see. I want to see Parl Harbor and the Arizona because I think it is similar. Ground Zero has the same feeling, but different because those were civilians.

    I have been blessed to see the Arizona, Ft. McHenry, the Bloody Angle, Yorktown, King Street in Boston and hope to see Normandy in the not too distant future.   While at Pearl Harbor we also visited the Missouri and my 12 yo daughter had just finished the WWII unit in school.  She commented while she was sitting in the Captain’s chair and looking out at the Arizona Memorial “that’s where the war for us started and right below (Peace Deck) was where we ended it.”  I pray all kids have the opportunity to visit these places and FEEL just what it takes to be free.

     

    • #4
  5. David C. Broussard Coolidge
    David C. Broussard
    @Dbroussa

    Bunsen (View Comment):

    David C. Broussard (View Comment):

    That is a place, like Gettysburg, that every American should see. I want to see Parl Harbor and the Arizona because I think it is similar. Ground Zero has the same feeling, but different because those were civilians.

    I have been blessed to see the Arizona, Ft. McHenry, the Bloody Angle, Yorktown, King Street in Boston and hope to see Normandy in the not too distant future. While at Pearl Harbor we also visited the Missouri and my 12 yo daughter had just finished the WWII unit in school. She commented while she was sitting in the Captain’s chair and looking out at the Arizona Memorial “that’s where the war for us started and right below (Peace Deck) was where we ended it.” I pray all kids have the opportunity to visit these places and FEEL just what it takes to be free.

     

    I do have as a bucket list to see the Museum Battleships. So far I have seen the Alabama, the Texas, the Wisconsin, the North Carolina, and the Massachusetts. I still need to see the New Jersey, the Missouri, and the Iowa. I’ve also seen the Yorktown and Lexington and would like to see the Intrepid. 

    • #5
  6. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot) Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot)
    @ArizonaPatriot

    The courage of those who fought on D-Day is admirable.

    They did not save freedom, though.  They saved Stalin’s tyranny.  This is the unpleasant truth about World War II. 

    The big winner was Stalin’s Soviet Union.  The country that the war was supposedly started to save, Poland, ended up half occupied for over 40 years, half lost for good (at least so far).  For those who don’t know, a sizeable chunk of western Ukraine and Belarus were permanently taken from Poland by the Soviet Union in WWII.  The Poles were given some German land to their west, to compensate.

    If the goal of the British and Americans in WWII had been to secure the victory of Stalin’s Evil Empire, we could hardly have done better.

    This is not generally taught.  We teach a triumphalist fiction which ignores real history.

    The irony should not be lost on anyone.  Before WWII, the Germans, Japanese, and Italians formed the Anti-Comintern Pact to oppose the Soviets.  For some bizarre reason, the British, French, and Americans ended up siding with Stalin.

    After the war, of course, we had to cobble together the same anti-Communist coalition, led by us, joined by Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and Italy.

    • #6
  7. Jim George Member
    Jim George
    @JimGeorge

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    The courage of those who fought on D-Day is admirable.

    They did not save freedom, though. They saved Stalin’s tyranny. This is the unpleasant truth about World War II.

    The big winner was Stalin’s Soviet Union. The country that the war was supposedly started to save, Poland, ended up half occupied for over 40 years, half lost for good (at least so far). For those who don’t know, a sizeable chunk of western Ukraine and Belarus were permanently taken from Poland by the Soviet Union in WWII. The Poles were given some German land to their west, to compensate.

    If the goal of the British and Americans in WWII had been to secure the victory of Stalin’s Evil Empire, we could hardly have done better.

    This is not generally taught. We teach a triumphalist fiction which ignores real history.

    The irony should not be lost on anyone. Before WWII, the Germans, Japanese, and Italians formed the Anti-Comintern Pact to oppose the Soviets. For some bizarre reason, the British, French, and Americans ended up siding with Stalin.

    After the war, of course, we had to cobble together the same anti-Communist coalition, led by us, joined by Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and Italy.

    I had had a morning with what seemed to have more than its fair share of “challenges”, to use a euphemism for “a really not good, almost downright depressing, morning”, but I have found that your comments can always be counted on to lift my spirits in the sense that I always know there is someone out there somewhere far more glum and gloomy and doomy than I am! So, I just wanted you to be sure you knew I am in your debt for turning my morning around and letting me see things in a much brighter light. 

    I posted this piece to honor our fallen heroes, each and every one of the 150,000 who landed on Omaha and Utah and Sword and the other beaches of Normandy that day. I posted it to remember what they gave for us, in some cases, their very lives. Your comment was, quite frankly, the last kind of comment I thought this post would engender. Nothing in those words even hints at any doubt I may have of your absolute right to voice whatever opinions you may wish to voice; that said, perhaps with other colleagues based on some of the comments I have seen, I am sure looking forward to the day when you have something, ANYthing, positive to say about something. 

    • #7
  8. Raxxalan Member
    Raxxalan
    @Raxxalan

    The original CBS broadcast day.

    https://archive.org/details/Complete_Broadcast_Day_D-Day/

    I have been listening to it today.   

    • #8
  9. Mountie Coolidge
    Mountie
    @Mountie

    My father flew for the Royal Air Force during the war. He left the University of Alabama in 1939, made his way to England, and volunteered for the Royal Air Force provided the would let him go to flight school, which they did. 

    I asked him once “Dad, when did you find out about D-Day? I mean it was a pretty top-secret operation wasn’t it?”. His reply, “When I looked out my left cockpit window and saw the beaches and the landing craft.”

    And that is how I found out that my father had a small part to play in D-Day.

    • #9
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.