RANDOM THOUGHTS ON THE
ANNIVERSARY OF D-DAY

I just finished watching the ceremonies at the US cemetery in Normandy commemorating D-Day. Naturally, it brought back memories of where I was and what I was doing on that fateful day.

I was on a troop train somewhere in the middle of Nevada on my way to my next assignment in the United States Army Air Corps, aerial gunnery school at Kingman AFB, Arizona. I was twenty-one years old. We had left Kearns AFB near Salt Lake City the day before and as the troop train travelled through the desert of Nevada on the morning of June 6, 1944 word spread rapidly through the train that the invasion of the European mainland had begun on the beaches of Normandy in France. The cheers on the train were deafening. We all realized that that day and that event marked the beginning of the end of World War II.

After completion of aerial gunnery school at Kingman AFB I joined my crew in Florida and after flight crew training traveled with my crew to Savanah, Georgia where we picked up a brand new B-17G bomber and flew it to England. I flew 32 combat missions over Germany in the months of January-May 1945. Most of the missions took us over Belgium and Holland , but on one occasion we flew over Normandy.

As I looked down at the cliffs of the Normandy beaches where our soldiers landed I was filled with awe at how it was possible to make a successful landing at that location. The answer is simply that the landing succeeded because of the heroic sacrifices of the men who made that amphibious assault.

I thank God that I survived the war and came back to seek out my vocation if life. I thank God for all those men and women who suffered loss of life or limb in that terrible war.

As I listened to the speeches by the leaders of nations at today’s ceremonies, all of which I thought were commendable, I could not help but wonder what was going through the minds of the veterans of D-Day who were present at the ceremonies. Undoubtedly their thoughts went back to June 6, 1944. But, perhaps, their thoughts turned also to the uncertain future which the United States and the rest of the Western World now faces.

May God bless America and protect her and preserve her from flawed leadership that will might even remotely create conditions which would make World War III inevitable.