I'm not making this up

This is a brief departure from the normal update on what is happening in our life. It is a topic very close to our hearts though and one that merits mention.

When I mentioned that yesterday was the anniversary of D-Day at work, my coworker in her early 20s asked me, "what's that?" I tried to jog her memory...."thousands of Allied soldiers died on the beaches of Normandy, France to start the invasion of Europe and free it from the Nazis during World War II..." I got a blank look. In stunned desperation, I said, "it was in the movie Saving Private Ryan." Finally, I got "I saw that movie," from her.


Is this seriously where our nation is heading? I can totally understand people maybe not being able to discuss validity of the Austrian plebiscite that had it annexed into Germany, the importance of Dunkirk, or how the Dolittle raids impacted the morale of the nation. But really....the argument that Pearl Harbor, D-Day, and the bombing of Hiroshima are the three main events of WWII is not that hard to make. I was afraid to even ask if she had heard of Winston Churchill at that point in the conversation. (She's only a couple of years out of highschool. I don't blame teachers....but the education system both public and private is definitely failing us as a nation.)

Part of the responsibility that comes with our freedoms is to remember and respect the sacrifices of those who won them for us. The total number of dead, wounded, or missing from Normandy is estimated to be 550,200. (To put that number in perspective, the total of dead and wounded from the entire four years of the US Civil War was 646,392.) Those men died for us. Their families received those dreaded letters from the war office and suffered grief beyond anything that I can imagine. We are free because they were willing to risk losing everything for it. This is something that we can not afford to forget.

God Bless!