Remembering D-Day

On the evening of June 6, 1944, America’s greatest airborne warrior General Matthew Ridgway, tossed restlessly in his cot. He had already led the 82^nd Airborne Division to victory in North Africa and Sicily, and General Eisenhower tasked him with commanding the airborne assault on Hitler’s fortress Europe. And he planned the operations of the Screaming Eagles, the All Americans, and the Red Devils of the British 6th Airborne Division. Ridgway knew that his paratroopers would suffer thirty percent causalities before they had a chance to fire back at the Wehrmacht. The great man reached for the Bible and recited the prayer that God gave to Joshua on the eve of Jericho, “I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee”.

That evening tens of thousands of soldiers boarded ships and loaded planes for the great invasion. General Eisenhower told each man that he was “about to embark on the great crusade” and that the enemy was about to face the most formidable fighting force on the planet, “…an American democracy aroused”.

The world can never forget the thousands of young Americans who stormed those beaches, manned the landing crafts and jumped into danger to give Europe what Abraham Lincoln would have called “a new birth of freedom”.

In May of 1986, as Ronald Reagan awarded General Ridgeway the Presidential Medal of Freedom, he said of him, “Heroes come when they’re needed. Great men step forward when courage seems in short supply.” This day is about great men and women and their memories that we can never forsake.