Ruth S. King
Reflections on D-Day
June 8, 2010

On June 6th, 1944 Allied forces operating from Great Britain performed the most complex and largest single day invasion in history. Starting under cover of night, gliders and parachutes dropped fighters into occupied France, naval bombardments and air attacks gave cover and by morning the amphibious vessels landed on the beaches along a fifty mile strip of coastline divided into five beaches—Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. By nightfall 160,000 troops had landed. After Normandy, there were to be many more battles and thousands of casualties, but the invasion known as D-Day was the beginning of the end of the Nazi killing machine.

The war with Germany ended on May 8, 1945 with unconditional surrender and the subsequent Potsdam Conference stripped Germany of all occupied territory. Furthermore, following Nazi Germany's surrender, millions of ethnic Germans were expelled from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary and Yugoslavia with Allied approval.

This summer as we commemorate the 65th anniversary of the Normandy invasion, freedom loving people throughout the world have a special sense of gratitude to the thousands of heroes—American, British, Canadian, Australian for their valor and sacrifice.

On the fiftieth anniversary of Normandy in 1994 world leaders and aging veterans gathered on the beach to commemorate the event. In Outpost of May 1994, I wrote: "This is not a time for ruminations on the failing of Roosevelt or Churchill, but rather a time to acknowledge the great leadership that countered and overturned national obsessions with pacifism and isolationism, and galvanized the vast military undertaking that liberated Europe and vanquished the Nazis. Today, there is a dreadful paucity of leaders with their vision, their energy, and their determination.”

Fifteen years later time has claimed many more veterans of that war but it is still true that there are no Western leaders capable of overturning current obsessions with pacifism, "root causes” and quick fixes. Not in Europe, where the populations supinely face Jihad (both direct and stealth via demography), not in America where the media is more obsessed with roughing up terrorist prisoners than with their putative victims, and, alas, not in Israel which has not finished a war since 1973…relying instead on promises and truces from deceptive and implacable enemies.

Where is there a leader today who could galvanize a nation by warning as Franklin Delano Roosevelt did on May 27, 1941?

"Some people seem to think that we are not attacked until bombs actually drop in the streets of New York or San Francisco or New Orleans or Chicago. But they are simply shutting their eyes to the lesson that we must learn from the fate of every Nation that the Nazis have conquered. The attack on Czechoslovakia began with the conquest of Austria. The attack on Norway began with the occupation of Denmark. The attack on Greece began with occupation of Albania and Bulgaria. The attack on the Suez Canal began with the invasion of the Balkans and North Africa, and the attack on the United States can begin with the domination of any base which menaces our security—north or south….We cannot bring about the downfall of Nazism by the use of long-range invective. But when you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck before you crush him.”

Who today could offer a prayer on the eve of battle as did President Roosevelt on D-Day in 1944?

"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. Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith. They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest--until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.”

The mere mention of the Almighty would offend the coercive atheists who legislate today and the notion of fighting to preserve our " Republic, our religion, and our civilization” would be derided in a "multicultural” and apologist society.

Instead we get hollow rhetoric about clenched fists, extended hands, dialogue, soothing messages and laughable warnings to the rattlesnake poised to strike. Instead of decisive victory over aggressors, the desired outcome is victory for both sides, truces, ceasefires. No one wins except the tyrants who remain in place and grow stronger.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower who as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force was instrumental in planning and executing the Normandy Invasion became United States President in 1952, but precipitously ended the Korean War, a disastrous policy whose legacy we see today in North Korea. The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba was aborted leaving brave Cubans who defied Castro’s brutal regime to die on the beaches abandoned and betrayed by the Kennedy administration.  The Vietnam War was ended with a sham victory leaving hundreds of thousands stranded in a Marxist hell-hole. In Iraq and Afghanistan we have a "mission accomplished” with Taliban and Sharia increasingly in control of the population.

Today, a real hero for the ages, Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders, who comes closest to Roosevelt and Churchill and who has put his life on the line to warn about Jihad and the present enemy, is marginalized and ignored while academies honor and invite tyrants.

Tom Brokaw wrote of those who fought in World War II as "the greatest generation” but every single American generation has brave soldiers who stand ready to fight and defend and to die for country, honor and duty.