A word of thanks
Granted, it’s not techincally D-Day yet (for a few hours anyhow). But, I’m up, and writing. It occurs to me that I have never given proper thanks to those who came before me, and offered themselves up so that I could be born into a free world. I’m quite certain that no amount of words could ever begin to repay that debt. So, here we are, sixty years hence. Young men stormed beaches in the rain because a madman wanted to take over Europe, and then the world.
What was accomplished on D-Day was, by all rational accounts of the time, impossible. Which is why it happened. Free people do impossible things all the time. Americans and Britons cooked up this incredible plan to push Himmler back to Berlin. It couldn’t possibly work, could it? It did, and it worked because failure was not an option. Thanks to technology that at the time couldn’t possibly work (the Colossus, which nobody would even know about for nearly forty years after the war’s end), the dedication and leadership of men who knew what was at stake (Eisenhower, Roosevelt, Montgomery, Churchill), and above all, the bravery and the will to run headlong into the belly of the beast (men whose names I could not list if I were to try).
And, though this day be darkened by the passing of one who served in that very war, and went on to lead this great nation for eight years, it seems almost fitting that he be given the last word here:
We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we can always be free.
-Ronald Wilson Reagan 1911-2004.