Remember....D-Day (part 4)

It was back in December that I made these remarks:

              " I have come to realize that the conscience of a nation isn't necessarily the historians who spend hours, days, and years studying the past. They are the chroniclers of time and past. No- the conscience of a nation is its veterans. Those who have made some of the history of a country while defending its principles and freedoms over the years." (Click here to read the full post)

Today marks the 69th anniversary of D-Day. It is when the Allied forces began to land on the beaches in Normandy, France what was the beginning of the end of the power known as Nazi Germany.

(retrieved from thebrigade.thechive.com)

A young man who may have been 18 on those beaches would be 87 today. Our WWII veterans are dwindling fast from this life. These were true heroes.

I can't imagine the fear, the anxiety that a young man had as he waited for that door to drop on the sands. The bombardment had stopped moments before to allow the troop transports to travel without worry of friendly bombardment knocking them out of the water. The only sound was the noise of the engine of the LCVP and the waves as they splash the front of the boat over the gate. Soon the Germany batteries start their bombardment. They can see what is coming at them from a distance. It is not easy to hit a target that moves quickly, but they try.

(retrieved from www.history.navy.mil )

The LCVP starts to scrape the sand at the rise of the beach. The front ramp drops and as it does the men begin to surge out of what for only moments had been a tenuous safe haven. The men in the rear were saved the onslaught of machine gun fire as the first wave of men stormed the beach. The men in the rear, though, weren't saved from the sight of seeing their comrades in arms floating in the sea, the first of many casualties that would rise that day.

On "Omaha beach" ..."the official record stated  that "within 10 minutes of the ramps being lowered, [the leading] company had become inert, leaderless and almost incapable of action. Every officer and sergeant had been killed or wounded [...] It had become a struggle for survival and rescue". (retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_landings)

There was no turning back for these men. They didn't have the convenience of modern technology that would allow a smart bomb to take out a cement bunker that was raining death on their unprotected comrades. It took individuals working as teams to take out those bunkers so that their comrades and friends could continue forward. They saw their friends fall. They could not mourn. They had to keep moving forward. That is what we do as US Military personnel.

If you see a Veteran thank him or her for their service and for their love of country. A free country is never free-it is paid with the blood of its young men and women who believe in its principles, believed in its religion, and believed in their loved ones.

To see further information on the D-Day landings go here.  

Remember....
jsf