Thank You
Brave People Who Were There
History's Greatest Invasion
70 Years Ago
Today.
" I lived
a thousand years
that day "
Wounded D-Day Veteran
[X]
I got to be born,
to grow up,
because of D-Day.
How many of us did!
Dad was in the
US Army Air Corps.
All of our fathers
and uncles were
veterans.
As were
the cop on the beat,
the school principal,
the mail-carrier
and the guy
pumping gas
[they also washed your windshield
and checked your tires!]
All the grown men
had been in
The War.
The British, Dutch,
French, Chinese,
Filipinos, Australians,
NZ, and others
were our allies
and friends.
Germany was chastened,
Japan likewise,
but we were rebuilding
them, infrastructure
and people,
as constitutional
Democracies in our
image
and as friends.
My parents' friends
up the block,
I played with their kids,
displayed the
living room photo
of Mrs. Schwartz's
handsome brother
in his US Navy pilot's uniform.
Action in the Pacific.
His body was never found.
Mothers, Fathers
grandparents, siblings
sweethearts
grieved
and always would.
But
they never talked about it.
The bereaved,
or the veteran fathers.
"Real men" didn't.
Everyone was John Wayne.
But every family
processed the
world's great pains.
We were the children
of a saved world,
children of Democracy.
It was a bright new day.
I grew up in a new house
purchased on great terms
with a VA loan.
(Veteran's Admin)
We would never understand
how the world suffered,
how our fathers
and mothers
suffered.
"Clean your plate
[ingrate] children
in Europe are starving."
And on some level
we felt their
unintended resentment.
They saved the world.
How could we live up
to THAT!?
Fathers were tough then.
We didn't know why.
Perhaps they toughened us
in case of another
unthinkable challenge.
We needed to study
math to beat the Russians,
not carry a gun up the beach.
I am horrible with numbers.
The adults also whispered
about relatives
"coming over"
all very hush hush.
We kids didn't need to know
that they had been in
concentration camps.
I saw the numbers
tattooed on the wrists
of old people
who spoke with accents
but looked like us.
Laying in bed
I asked myself
if I could survive
hundreds of miles
crammed into a closed
boxcar with hundreds
of others, but no
toilet.
Today-
Outside my window
here in Honolulu
I see one of the globe's
great WWII military cemeteries,
Punchbowl
National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific
President Obama's grandfather
Stanley Dunham
is buried there.
The President grew up
in Stanley's home a mile from
here for many years.
The Obamas
and their girls
have visited Stanley's
grave more than once
" My landing craft
was full of boys.
Approaching the shore
I could hear
rapid machine gun fire
hitting the front of the boat.
I knew when I lowered that ramp
those bullets would be
hitting flesh
instead of metal.
We hit the beach,
I got the order.
I lowered that gate."
US Navy Veteran
[in his 90's today]
at Omaha Beach
"Live your freedom.
That's what we did it for."
D-Day Veteran
70 Years Ago
Today
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