Independence Day and D-Day

We are in France, fortuitously during the Independence Day holiday.  Yesterday we toured a number of sites related to D-Day and the Battle for Normandy.  It is impossible not to be moved to tears.  Actually seeing the Normandy beaches gives you the fullest sense of what the soldiers faced.  Tired from being up early, really not sleeping all night; seasick and soaking wet from the rough sea, laden with gear, facing several hundred yards of mud flats at low tide with no protective cover, being fired upon by Germans in often hidden bunkers and other concrete emplacements.  Yet they all disembarked and attempted to make their way up to land to begin the fight to reclaim the continent from Germany.  Bravery does not do justice to describe what these often very young men displayed that day.

And they did it to aid faraway countries; the US was under no direct threat from Germany.  They and we as a country did it to rid the world of a brutal dictator, to return the conquered nations to the control of the people living there, to demonstrate that democracies can defeat authoritarian regimes.  And the soldiers died by the ten of thousands, young men who never had a chance to live a full life and contribute what they might to humanity.  It is a waste and a loss, but the alternative is for all humanity to live under the totalitarians who cannot rest if there is one free human left anywhere.  Their cause was just and right.

I constantly remind people who whine about our aid to Ukraine that the United States would not have won the war of independence without the help of France and other nations.  That country helped us out of its own selfish motives in its unending struggle with England, but also because its people similarly yearned for a government that honored the free will and choices of citizens.  Humanity constantly faces the choice–knuckle under to dictators or fight for freedom.  The more free countries there are, the less likely that wars will occur.  Democracies are rarely the aggressors.

Visiting the American cemetery near the D-Day beaches is sobering.  These young men made an enormous sacrifice.  It is not trite to say that they paid the ultimate price so that we all couild remain free and prosperous.  I cannot imagine how we can possibly honor that sacrifice in any higher manner than to do all we can to preserve the freedom and inalienable rights of all people everywhere.  It is. beyond tiresome to hear the caterwauling of many in this country who constantly criticize, even demonize what we have been to the world.  To hell with all of them.  We are a great country, one we all should feel tremendous pride to be citizens of.