D+23,741

That is today; D-Day (June 6, 1944) +23,741 days. Sixty-five years ago the long planned invasion at the Normandy beaches, occurred. At Normandy where many thousands who died and were wounded. These men are heroes. They sacrificed their time, families, youth, and sometimes their lives, for freedom.

More than that, these men sacrificed for someone elses freedom. People they did not know. They could not speak their language. They knew nothing of their culture, but they saved them from oppressive fascist rule. True heros.

The men I think about...

The foot soldier
In our family it was a 19 year-old young man named Lupe Torres who landed there in the second wave. Grandpa told his granddaughter this story of his landing...

Because of the exhaustion and a loaded backpack, wading/swimming towards the beach he started to drown. He was struggling to try to keep his head above water and was giving up. The chore of staying alive becoming much to difficult. Then two Sargents grabbed him and helped him to the beach. When he came around to what was going on, Lupe asked some of his other friends where the two Sargents were that helped him out of the water? The soldiers replied that their were no other soldiers there, you helped yourself from the water. When grandpa told Pam the story he said "It was two angels that saved my life that day." I believe it was God's hand that helped him that day.

The leader
On a trip I took to England in the early 1990's what I noticed walking around London was statues of General Eisenhower on the corners. Not FDR, not Truman but statues of Eisenhower, the General who planned D-Day and had the courage to carry it out. Truly a difficult task to commit hundreds of thousands men to their possible demise.

The Western Union telegraph man
I know it is strange to put such a man in this place but what I think of is, the everyday people who had to inform a mother or wife that their son was gone. Everyday people, often not trained for such duty, witnessed and participated in, the hardest day in a families lives. They did this everyday.

To these and so many other people during one of the most difficult times in our history the only thing left that I can say is: Thank You