This week marks the 75th anniversary of the D-day invasion. It was June 6th, 1944 when 160,000 Allied troops from several countries, the largest number made up of Americans, backed up by 5000 ships and 13,000 aircraft landed on the beaches of Normandy along a 50 mile stretch of the French Coastline. Then President Eisenhower was quoted as saying “We will accept nothing less than full victory”. It was certainly a victory, but a costly one indeed, as 9000 service members were killed or wounded in that fierce, raging battle, which historians say was the beginning of the end of Nazi Germany’s reign of terror.
The D-Day invasion is no longer taught in some public schools in America and that is a policy that should be changed immediately. Students should learn about the incredible and legendary courage of the military personnel, many, especially those among the first to come ashore under a deadly rain of fire coming down upon them, knowingly faced almost certain death but were not deterred. They were fighting for this nation’s freedom and in fact, to save the world. They would not allow any power on earth to stop them.
It is events like D-Day and others in our nation’s proud history that must endure the test of time and never be allowed to fade from memory or mysteriously disappear from textbooks. There are those who would try to rewrite our history or eliminate completely those things that promote American pride. Their efforts must be stopped.
