Why Is Remembering D-Day Important to America’s Future?

Tomorrow is D-Day, so it is only fitting that my VIPs for this week are the Greatest Generation, those men and women who saved the world from Nazi Germany. They were the brave warriors who fought and died for freedom and opportunity. Seventy-nine years ago on June 6, 1944, the massive army of Allied forces invaded Normandy. Dakota Wood wrote the following about the occasion. 

In the five years that preceded it [D-Day], Europe had been thrown into convulsion as Adolf Hitler’s war machine raged across the Continent. In the days, weeks, and months that followed D-Day, victory was assured (though at unknown additional cost), accompanied by a future that did not include domination by the Nazi regime.

But that day itself, the beginning of Operation Overlord, first had to happen, and it had to be successful. If it had failed, then the future of Europe, and likely much of the world, would have been very dark for a very long time.

By mid-1944, a slew of countries had been conquered, occupied, or severely damaged by Germany: Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Estonia, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, San Marino, Ukraine, and Yugoslavia.

Great Britain had held out, with sheer determination and the aid of essential American military support, against the onslaught of German airpower. Even North Africa was embroiled, as German forces rampaged across Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.

Germany kept a stranglehold on the Mediterranean and sank more than 3,000 merchant ships in the Atlantic, with the loss of 60,000 civilians and military personnel, before Allied navies managed to gain the upper hand.

D-Day, June 6, changed all of that. It was a singular event, to be sure, but just the tip of a much fuller story. The herculean effort of D-Day was the physical, visible manifestation of America’s human and industrial potential, harnessed for war in the years that preceded it.

The landings on Normandy’s beaches and the Allied push into occupied France involved more than 5,000 ships, nearly 200,000 troops, 4,500 bombers, and 3,800 fighters, the vast majority contributed by America. The military power assembled from across the United States, Canada, and Great Britain represented the forces of good determined to defeat the forces of evil and the commitment of the United States to this cause.

There are lessons to be learned from the war to defeat Nazi Germany. All war is evil, and World War II was no exception. The heroes and heroines of that war are mostly gone, but we should remember their lessons. Again, in the words of Wood:

Russia’s assault on Ukraine, Iran’s obsession with acquiring nuclear weapons and the destruction of Israel, and China’s relentless pursuit of hegemony hint at the sort of world envisioned by Hitler. D-Day showed what might be required to prevent such a future from taking root.

America helped to save the world from Nazism. Are we prepared to save the world again from Russia, Iran, and China – the next Axis of Evil? Is the woke military capable of such sacrifice and valor? Are Americans willing to put America first? The answers to these questions and many others will be known by the results of the 2024 Presidential Election.

Will Future Generations Follow in the Footsteps of the Greatest Generation?

            On June 6, 1944, members of the “Greatest Generation” began their invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord. This invasion of Europe is known as D-Day, and it is important because it was the beginning of the end for the Nazi regime. More than 4,400 Allied troops died during the landings in Normandy, and more than 10,000 were wounded.

            According to Ben Shapiro, American civilians knew nothing about the invasion until President Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked all Americans to join him in praying for success of the mission. 

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity… let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrow that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

            The men who stormed the beaches of Normandy were young – about the ages of college students today. They were 18 and 19 years old, and they had the courage to put their lives on the line for freedom. Many of today’s 18- and 19-year-old men and women need “safe places” to protect them from opposing viewpoints.

            It is truly sad that our current resident of the White House made no mention of D-Day and maintained silence on the topic. He did not utter or tweet a single word about it even when his absence was noted. However, he made an extremely important comment about bravery the next day: “To transgender Americans across the country – especially the young people who are so brave – I want you to know your President has your back.” However, Shapiro noted the difference in bravery between the Greatest Generation and today’s generation.

Bravery circa 1944: young men charging from the choppy seas of the English Channel onto the corpse-strewn beaches of Normandy, hellfire raining down upon them, to liberate a continent.

Bravery circa 2021: young men identifying as women, and vice versa.

Our definitions of bravery have shifted rather dramatically.

Our old definition of courage used to comport with the Aristotelian notion of virtue. The virtue of courage – andreia, or manliness, in Greek – lay in recognition of serious risk in pursuit of a heroic telos, a final end.

“The courageous man withstands and fears those things which it is necessary [to fear and withstand], and on account of the right reason,” Aristotle explains in “Nicomachean Ethics.” Courage is calculated and calm risk-taking for the sake of the noble and the good.

Not anymore.

            Shapiro points out that “courage lies in authenticity” today. He also wrote that “our higher virtue isn’t in upholding and defending some standard for civilization at risk to ourselves. Higher value lies in finding our personal truths, and then demanding applause from the rest of the world. Heroism lies in forcing the world to bow before our subjective ideas of truth and decency.”

            Nevertheless, Shapiro suggested another possibility for the new definition of bravery: “the goal of tearing down the old definition of the good… in personally rejecting old systems of thought and objective truth and in joining with others to demand that all systems of power be brought low.

            Only time will tell if our nation falls with the new courage, or if it discovers men and women with the courage of the “Greatest Generation” and returns to full strength.