Remembering Normandy

There was no guarantee it would work.

The British high command had substantial doubts, understandably shaped by their years of fighting the unrelenting Nazi war machine. The Americans, newer to the fight in Europe, were more optimistic. They decided to risk it all. 

Thousands of men, boats, ships, planes, coordinated in Operation Overlord, put ashore under withering fire at beachheads in northern France. Paratroopers and Rangers, dropped via aircraft on the previous day, attempted to cut off Nazi resupply lines and to outflank the defenders of the cliffside strongholds.

The amazing thing, of course, is that it did work. Despite brutal fighting and thousands of casualties, the Allies pushed through and overcame the Nazis at Normandy, which helped the Allies build the momentum needed to win Europe back.

What I thought about most on June 6, 2020, 76 years after D-Day, is what it must have felt like to be a young American Soldier, Sailor, Marine or Coast Guardsman on that day before the invasion.

There was no realistic expectation of success. There was no promise that it would be commemorated by statues and monuments and eventually depicted in movies and TV shows. There was not a promise - or even a real possibility - that any of those young men would ever get home or, even less remotely, that they would have the opportunity to experience adulthood after the war.

There was nothing but the abyss of war before them - the grim maw of brutal combat and the high probability of horrors to come.

But despite all of that, they went. They might not have called themselves brave in the moment. I'm sure they were scared to death. They understood the need to push forward, maintained their resilience, and accomplished their mission.

The freedom of the world was their eventual reward. For that, we should always be grateful.