Blogger was down this morning.  I sent them a strong letter condemning them for depriving the world of Lex.

We must have been a different kind of people in 1944. On Jun 6th of that year Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy, France. America lost 2,499 of its finest men that day. Can anyone imagine a scenario today where this nation would commit to lose so much blood and treasure on a single day?


The truly astonishing thing to me is that military planers and politicians of the day knew it would be a blood on the beaches. They made the commitment. They stormed the beaches. They made the sacrifice. All in order to gain just a toe hold to begin rolling back Nazism and Fascism.

How abstract do you suppose those concepts were to an 18-22 year old in 1944? Well, on second thought, given the decline of public education, those concepts are probably more abstract to today’s 18-22 years olds than they were in 1944.

For the average 18-22 year old – of any era - wading ashore in a hail of artillery, mortar and rifle fire to free Pierre from German oppression had to give one pause to think – why me? There must be a better way. Yet by the 10s of thousands they picked up their rucksacks, moved out and drew fire. They did what they had to do.

I happened to be at a cancer relay for life event with a handful of Scouts over the weekend. I wore the hat I had bought when I toured the Normandy battlefields on Jun 6th 2005. I mentioned to a group of adults that Sunday would mark the anniversary of the D-Day invasion and showed them my hat.

A brief question and answer ensued about what the experience was like. After that we moved on to the task at hand. I thought at the time. Well at least a few us will remember.

Americans do not have spiritual or political “Mecca’s.” We have touchstones of the founders in Washington D.C. But we do not have that one place where we could go to get in touch with what it is to be an American. Were I king of America for a day, I’d seriously consider requiring all Americans to journey to one of two places during their lifetimes. Gettysburg on the 4th of July or Normandy on Jun 6th.

For me those two places capture the spirit of America. At Gettysburg over 3,000 Americans were killed trying to erase America’s original sin of slavery. A fact not often mentioned in the texts of today’s race baiters. In Normandy over 2,000 fell, not protecting their own families but protecting the families of the world. As a nation, I think we can be very proud of who we are and what we’ve accomplished – yes in our own interests but in the interests of the world as well.

Every time I hear Edwin Star’s anti-war anthem “War” (War Huh, What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.) I think of these two places, and wonder if Star had ever visited them or even knew the history of his own country. Yeah war is sad and tragic. But sometimes, you gotta do what gotta do. Thanks God America has always been blessed with an abundance of men who knew this and were willing to ruck up, move out and draw fire.