Opinion: D-Day: June 6, 1944

By REES LLOYD

June 6, 2020 is the 76th anniversary of  a day which should live in the minds and hearts of all generations of Americans as a true milestone of liberty: D-Day, June 6, 1944 — a day to be emulated by Americans if tyranny again makes it necessary to fight and perhaps to die for freedom.

It is particularly poignant and important to remember the sacrifices of the WWII Generation to preserve and protect American freedom on D-Day 1944, as today all across America thousands of Americans who are the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and even great-great-grandchildren of the WWII generation, are using the freedom the WWII generation preserved for them to engage in protesting, rioting, looting, vandalizing and burning property, and physically assaulting and even shooting police officers, in order not to “reform” but to “transform” and thereby destroy the free, Constitutional Republic the WWII generation preserved for this generation at the cost of 400,000 American veterans’ lives in WWII.

On D-Day, 1944, in the largest amphibious landing in history, some 156,00 soldiers, sailors, marines, air corps and coast guard members of America, Britain, Canada, free France, Poland, and other nations, participated in the allied invasion at Normandy, France, to defeat the totalitarian tyranny of  the National Workers Socialist Party (NAZI) of Adolf Hitler,  who had conquered all of Europe.

Those who fought at Normandy on D-Day to preserve freedom from defeat by Hitler’s national socialist fascism, paid a terrible sacrifice. The beaches at Normandy, with NAZI artillery and machine guns established in cross-fire patterns, were, indeed, “killing fields,” prepared for slaughter. The sea ran red with blood.

There were more than 10,000 casualties. The beaches designated Omaha, Utah, and Gold were covered by the wounded and dying. Over 4,000 of them, including 2,500 Americans, were killed in action. But by their bravery and sacrifice,  they turned the tide of war in what the late famed historian Stephen Ambrose called “the climatic battle of WWII,” in his book “D-Day: June 6, 1944.”

Hitler was convinced — and had convinced most of the western world — that his Fortress Europe could turn back and defeat any attempt to invade Europe by sea. So confident were the NAZI socialists, that their top generals, including Erwin Rommel, the “Desert Fox” who had gained famed in the Africa campaign, were elsewhere. Rommel himself was on leave in Germany, when the invasion was launched from Great Britain for Normandy — and not Calais, which the Nazi’s thought would be the point of invasion if one were made.

But Hitler was confident his Fortress Europe would defeat any invasion, anywhere.  Rommel, his best fighting general, had overseen the NAZI’s military arrangement of massive armaments all along the coast from Spain to Norway, creating Fortress Europe.

On D-Day, June 6, 1944, there was great doubt the invasion could succeed. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, actually paused to write a note in his own hand a statement to be made should the battle be lost. General Eisenhower wrote that if the invasion was lost, it was entirely his fault. He made no excuses, did not the fault of his subordinate officers or the soldiers who fought it, or blame anyone else.

Compare that American leadership in the WWII generation with, for example, the “red lines” drawn by Commander-in-Chief Barack Hussein Obama proscribing use of gas or genocide in Syria, which  turned out to be writ in sand and blowing in the wind. Or, for another example, the excuses of Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Benghazi scandal.

After writing his note taking sole responsibility should the invasion fail, Gen. Eisenhower issued a simple order, “OK, let’s go!” American and allied soldiers went. They fought. They died. Some 16,000,000 Americans ultimately served,  including 400,000 who sacrificed their lives for our freedom.   By their sacrifice, they conquered, they saved the freedom of America, and the world, from the tyranny of Hilter’s national socialist fascism, NAZIism.

It can truly be said that without the bravery and sacrifice of that WWII generation of Americans, we Americans, would not be free today. We would be but the serfs of fascist socialism under the brand of Hitler’s NAZIism, mouthing political platitudes of social justice being achieved under a messiah, Adolf Hitler.

But the question to ask on the 76th  Anniversary D-Day is, how many Americans will remember D-Day, June 6, 1944, on June 6, 2020? How many of us will remember today that we are the heirs of freedom purchased for us by the blood of the 400,000 members of the WWII Generation who gave their lives for freedom, and the 16-million veterans who served in that war?

What of the values of the WWII generation who fought in Europe on D-Day and thereafter, and in the Pacific against Japan, often called the Greatest Generation?  They were the children of the Depression and the men and women of WWII, not the children of material comfort and privilege of subsequent generations. They had no “safe zones.”

The late author Michael Novak, in his important book entitled, “On Two Wings—Humble Faith And Common Sense At the Founding Of America,” cites a study done in the late 1950’s on the values of Americans. What the study found was that the Americans whose values were closest to the Founding Fathers’ values was —the American families who had served in WWII.

The question presented on D-Day 2020 is whether we Americans today, and will the next generation, respond to fight to the death to preserve American freedom from tyranny that the Founding Generation created for us in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution and the WWII generation preserved for us on D-Day 1944 and WWII?

May God bless and keep all those who served on D-Day, June 6, 1944, and the entirety  WWII, as all gave some, and some gave all to preserve freedom for us and all generations to come.

May we, as Americans, have the love of God and love of Country of the WWII  Generation that led them to fight and die for freedom if we receive the call, as they did from Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower on D-Day, June 6, 1944: “Let’s go!”

FOR GOD AND COUNTRY FOREVER; SURRENDER TO TYRANNY—NEVER!

The views and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the American Legion Department of California.