Saturday, June 16, 2018

The Image

I am possessed by an image. It is June 6, 1944 —- 74 years ago —- and a young man is in full battle regalia standing at the very front of an LST landing craft that is bucking waves toward Omaha Beach. He has trained on American soil and sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to England and has nervously set off that morning for a beach in France. The landing craft finally reaches waste-deep water at the beach and the huge front door slams downward. Suddenly the beach is in full view ahead and at that very instant a bullet slams right through the front of his helmet into his brain and he is gone — doesn’t even remember being alive —- snuffed out like a bug. Perhaps 5,000 other young men died on the very same day and on that very same beach. Why?

It was all about Hitler. He just wanted to make Germany great again.

Hitler’s Nazi Party won popular support in 1933 and many Germans remained faithful to him to the very end. They paid a heavy price for that, as did Americans, French, and British men and women. All in all about 60 million people died because Hitler wanted to make Germany great again.

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