D-Day 75 Years Later

My grandfather like most members of his generation, was a veteran of World War II. He was drafted before Pearl Harbor and in 1944, was sent to Europe where he was part of the Sixth Army Group which invaded Southern France and moved North before crossing the Rhine into Germany.

To hear people like William Barr compare being Attorney General to being a paratrooper on D-Day is disgusting. The fact that his statement makes it clear that he doesn’t really understand what being a paratrooper involved makes it even more comical that the chickenhawk is trying to sound and act like a tough guy.

Of course he does work for a President – and I’m writing specifically that he works for a President as opposed to working for the American people or at the discretion of the President – who has made vile comments about prisoners of war, soldiers killed in action, and Gold Star families. A President who wants credit for improvements others made to the VA but has done little to improve it – and who behind the scenes wants to privatize it. A President who is sending our troops to the Southern border to paint a wall, among other actions that erode military readiness. A President who is busy threatening war but not planning for one. A President who isn’t taking care of military personnel and their families, diverting money allocated to improve housing to other things.

The Chairwoman of the GOP tweeted: “We are celebrating the anniversary, 75 years of D-Day. This is the time where we should be celebrating our President, the great achievements of America, and I don't think the American people like the constant negativity.”

Honoring the anniversary of D-Day is literally NOT about the current President of the United States. The whole point of D-Day and honoring those veterans is not a celebration of the current President of the United States.

“Constant negativity” is taking time out on that day to talk with someone on Fox News and attack your domestic political opponents instead of taking time to focus on D-Day, on those veterans, on remembering what happened and what it meant. Instead, the President and those around him turned the anniversary of D-Day into just another day of partisan political fighting.

Maybe this was inevitable. As those who lived these events passed away, these events become either symbols that have been drained of much of the meaning that they were originally imbued with, or they become simply another day on the calendar. But it is the actions of a President who feels that nothing is sacred. And does so in our name. What do we believe in and stand for?

This isn’t the piece I wanted to write for or about D-Day, but these are the times in which we live. I don’t mean the question rhetorically, I’m truly unclear what we stand for and what we believe.