Today is June the 6th. On this day in 1944 allied forces stormed the beaches at Normandy. It’s an event that took place eighty two years ago, nine years before my birth. I have heard stories about that all my life. I’ve seen Hollywood presentations of that and read the actual history. In more recent years actual footage taken on those beaches has ben shown to the general public with a warning, some images may be disturbing. Yes, it is disturbing to watch! I can’t imagine how it must have felt to be there, the one assaulting those beaches. Just young guys, many teenagers slogging through the surf and sand as your buddies were being shot alongside you. Disturbing, you bet it was disturbing.

I have no first hand accounts from anyone in my family about that. My father served in the Army Air Force at that time, he was dropping bombs on the Japanese. My uncles served in the army and the Navy. Every one of them returned home after the war. Whatever battles they were engaged in I don’t know, there was no talk of that. That war was disturbing to everyone, no doubt about that. My own father rarely said anything about that. Those conversations were reserved the smoke filled halls of the Legion post or the Veterans of Foreign Wars buildings. Cigarettes and alcohol was their therapy.

Eighty two years before the invasion at Normandy my great, great grandfather was serving in the civil war. A member of the 127th New York Volunteers, Company G, fighting in South Carolina. By all accounts he was a rather frail man, small in stature and sickly. He spent a good deal of his time in hospital, not from war wounds, just disease. He was there when the Union recaptured Fort Sumter. Years later he would suffer from a nervous breakdown long before they called any of that PTSD. That war was disturbing.

Personally I served in the Navy from 1971 until 1993. I made no invasions, no assaults, engaged in no battles whatsoever. I was there for Desert Storm/Desert Shield, well off the coast providing support. That was as close as I got to any actual combat. It wasn’t disturbing to me at all. I still feel a little guilty for having served all those years and not having had to face the “elephant” as the saying goes. Just signing the paper and taking the oath isn’t the same as doing that. I do not consider myself as any measure of a hero, not at all. I am disturbed when others try to make me out to be one, or attempt to make themselves out that way. I leave the hero stuff to actual heroes! Simply being a participant doesn’t qualify!

All those that stormed the beaches at Normandy were not heroes. They were men, young men, doing their duty to the nation. I’m certain a good number of them, given the choice, would not have participated in that invasion. Their personal morals would not allow them to just say, no. Were they disturbed? You bet they were, terrified most likely, and justly so. But those young men were raised in a time when you did the right thing, even when no one was looking! You can call it machismo, or whatever else you like but I call it personal integrity. There personal feelings were set aside in favor of the common good. Defending the country was the goal, at all costs.

They have been called the greatest generation. It’s a moniker well earned. Most were born during the great depression. They grew up with little more than a promise of hope. FDR was going to save the country and he did an excellent job at that. He did create programs and jobs. That generation went to war with the tales of those that had fought in world war one and hearing the horrors of that conflict. Still they answered the nations call.

After the war they built the greatest economy this country had ever seen. Politicians have destroyed all of that. I wonder how that has been allowed to happen. We haven’t had a president that served in actual combat since John Kennedy. Our congress has been filled with those that have never served in any capacity, today only 18% of that congress are veterans. FDR himself never served in the military though, during world war two he served as asst. secretary of the Navy. In the 1970’s nearly 75% of those in congress were veterans. I think about all of that as I remember that just eighty two years ago today all those that stormed the beaches at Normandy. It’s disturbing.

This is what remains!