Saturday, June 6, 2009
D-Day still important to us
There are dates in all our lives that have significance -- birthdays, anniversaries, Christmases.
Then there are those that matter to all of us as a nation, and today is one of those dates. On June 6, 1944, thousands of young Americans and Englishmen came ashore at Normandy Beach in France in what was certainly the beginning of the end for Adolf Hitler's Germany.
That was 65 years ago today, and President Obama was in France with other national leaders for a commemoration of the honored dead and those who survived.
I wonder how much longer D-Day will matter, how many more years we will celebrate it. I was in France the summer of the 50th anniversary and I will be there later this summer as well. The youngest veterans of World War II are now in their 80s, and it won't be too much longer before they're all gone.
We no longer celebrate the signing of the peace at Appomattox in 1865, and most Americans would have no idea on what day the Maine was blown up in Havana harbor.
Eventually, all things pass.
There will even come a time when the date Sept. 11 won't mean much to Americans.
All things pass.
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