Written on 6/5/2004. I somehow feel the last quote is important as we see the left want to cut and run.

As I sit here the men who crossed those beaches were named Utah, Omaha, Sword and Juno are approaching eighty years old. Many of them were nineteen when they hit those beaches, not ones with white sand and colorful umbrellas but with concrete bunkers, machine guns, Teller mines and tank traps. Early in the morning of June 6, 1944, sometime after midnight the first paratrooper jumped out of a C-47 and fell through the air toward “Festung Europa”, Erwin Rommel’s Fortress Europe. Behind him were thousands of other men jumping from planes and landing in plywood gliders. Many of these had only minutes, some only seconds to live when they jumped or the glider dropped the tow to start down. Some had chute failures and died on impact.

Some landed in water and drowned. Some fell into fortified places like Sainte Mere Eglise. These parachutists were followed at dawn by thousands more landing on the beaches. They were to have tank support but in the heavy weather over half of the tanks with canvas floats sank, killing their crews and leaving the men on the beach without the support they needed. The real death toll of those sunken tanks was far higher then the roughly 150 crew members. Many died taking out defenses that the tanks would have handled easily. Many more died because the bombardment of the beaches was moved inland because of the weather and the beach defenders survived to oppose them. Many died because in the economics of warfare some die so that some men get to the beach alive. It is the law of attack.

The ones who got to the beach alive pushed the Nazi hoards off that beach. Hitler’s days were numbered, in less than a year he would be dead at his own hand. But on that day it was as the songwriter put it.

Lyrics by Paul Anka

Many men came here as soldiers
Many men will pass this way
Many men will count the hours
As they live the longest day

Many men are tired and weary
Many men are here to stay
Many men won’t see the sunset
When it ends the longest day

The longest day the longest day
This will be the longest day
Filled with hopes and filled with fears
Filled with blood and sweat and tears

Many men the mighty thousands
Many men to victory
Marching on right into battle
In the longest day in history

And sixty years later American fighting men are standing against another tyranny. Saddam is in chains but many of the old guard who kept him in power are still there and willing to take over and re-impose the tyranny. If they win it will be just trading one slavery for another slavery. They will replace the slavery of a dictator with the slavery of Islam. We must make sure that Islam remains a religion not the government.

This is why American fighting men are today standing, not on sandy beaches but on desert sands. Sixty years later, like their grandfathers on Omaha they stand tall.

Will we stand tall with them today as Rosie the riveter did in 1944 or will we count the cost and call it too high? “Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!” (Patrick Henry)

Or will we forbear and end up as Churchill said.

“If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”