June 6
Remembrances
June 6.
A day to remember sacrifice, heroism, and the deep cost of freedom ... to renew our commitment to repel forces of hatred and injustice ... to dedicate ourselves to our nation's noblest ideals. The beaches, once strewn with death, now offer affirmation of our ability to heal.
Is 1944 already 79 years ago? The ranks of those alive to remember D-Day dwindle. Soon there will be no more.
A lived experience will recede forever into the history books.
The horror of the war that preceded this day, and all that was still to follow.
The full scale of the bloodshed, and the fear — even in the United States, separated by oceans — that a permanent darkness would envelop the globe.
The desperate sense that if we did not come together to the cause, we risked losing everything.
Even as a child, the uncertainty, dread, hope, yearnings, loss, and resilience were palpable. For years, I had listened to reports from far-flung battlefields. I had learned world geography, from North Africa to the islands of the Pacific, by plotting datelines of death and destruction in books of maps. The career path that would become my life’s work was forged in those moments when I was alone with my thoughts, my radio, and the voices of fearless correspondents.
D-Day, its anticipation, execution, and aftermath, still seems immediate to me today. I have had occasion to visit those beaches, report from there, and pay tribute to the fallen. I think of these young men, just a bit older than I was, asked to run toward bullets in the service of freedom. I think of those they left behind, and those who returned who were never the same.
One of the indelible lessons of war is the preciousness and precariousness of peace.
Two comments are necessary:
The first is agreement that all the veterans, those who returned home and those who did not, deserve recognition, gratitude and appreciation for their courageous sacrifice of which we have benefitted for years. Thank you with all my heart.
The second is thank you Dan Rather for your ongoing sensitivity and empathy in all your writing. It is easy to forget that there is a real human behind your great pieces, not just a journalist or reporter. Every story you write has an emotional facet to it the reminds me behind the polished words there is a human being with emotions and caring for the world he writes about. Thank you sir.
Richard Szpin (in Canada)
My dad has been gone many years now but I still swell with pride about his service and grieve about what the horrors of that war did to his psyche. In my heart they will always be the greatest generation and true examples of patriotism. Thank you for reminding us how much is owed them.