June 6: A Walk Across a Beach in Normandy

Vanderleun has an excellent essay on what it was like to land on the beaches of Normandy 75-years ago today.

The whole thing is great (be sure to also read the comments) but this piece really spoke to me:

They'll ask you, throughout long decades after, "What did you do in the war?" You'll think of this day and you will never think of a good answer. That's because you know just how lucky you were.

If you were not lucky on that day you lie under a white cross on a large lawn 75 long gone years later.

Somewhere above you among the living weak princes and fat bureaucrats and rank traitors mumble platitudes and empty praises about actions they never knew and men they cannot hope to emulate.