Americans are involved in very troublesome military operations on the other side of the world today, in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’ve been involved for years, with no end in sight.
But we recall that a little over 66 years ago — in June 1944 — American troops were engaged in “the greatest military invasion in history.” Then, there was expectation that, after great efforts and great losses, the end of World War II in Europe was in sight.
It was June 6, 1944, when the U.S. and Allied invasion of Europe began, seeking to liberate France, Belgium and the Netherlands from Nazi German occupation — and eventually defeat Adolf Hitler’s Germany.
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower commanded the U.S. and Allied forces. The invasion forces involved 150,000 soldiers. Twelve thousand airplanes were in action — bombers, fighters and cargo planes. Braving rough seas in the English Channel, a huge naval armada disgorged troops on the coast at Normandy in France. Paratroopers jumped from aircraft behind Nazi lines.
The fighting was fierce across Europe, with some serious setbacks, until the defeat and surrender of the Nazis in May of 1945.
But then there was the war against Japan to be won — in August 1945, after nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, shocking the world and finally bringing peace.
Americans regrettably are involved in war today. The conflicts now are not on a scale comparable with that in 1944 and 1945. But when the tide turned favoring the Allies in World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said he could see “the end of the beginning” for victory. But today, we distressingly can’t see “the beginning of the end” in Afghanistan and Iraq.
What terrible things our enemies — in World War II in the 1940s and in Afghanistan and Iraq in the 1990s and now into 2010 — have imposed upon us, and indeed upon themselves!
How much better off we Americans and the Afghans and Iraqis today would be if we had peace instead of war, death and destruction.