I remember in the eighth grade having to pick a book about a moment in history and creating a diaroma of the main idea. I worked for weeks reading The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan. Then with my mom, 2 cans of  spray paint, a packet of 50 little army men and some sand, we made this giant foam diorama the size of our kitchen table.

Still till this day, Ryan’s narrative about the actions of troops on both sides is the most detailed descriptions of  the beginning of the end of Hitler’s Western Empire in Europe. But for me it is mixed together with times that I read the book on bus rides home and summers when I watched the movie version with my grandfather, a Navy Cook who survived Guadalcanal and saw the Ivy Mike detonation. And then as a young adult, watching Saving Private Ryan with college friends and wondering if we had what it took to make it in the boats that day much less up the open flats of Omaha beach.

Today marks the 78th anniversary of the Battle of Normandy. Some of those men were seeing action for the first time while others were making their fourth amphibious assault of the war. For the next year, those men would slowly grind their way east to meet the Soviet Army near Berlin in May of 1945 and end the war in Europe.

Please take a moment today to remember their sacrifice and for the ideals of Allied Nations as they worked to end fascism’s grip on the world. 

See Also: Normandy American Cemetery