Learning About D-Day

This past Friday (June 6) was the 70^th anniversary of D-Day.

My mother’s youngest brother landed with the troops on D-Day and survived, although he never talked about it. For those who went through it, it must have been very hard to live with and very hard to forget.

For the rest of us, it’s too easy to forget. That’s why we need reminders like the D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia, where I took the picture at the top of this post. The dioramic sculpture shows the troops landing on Omaha Beach. The boxy thing in the rear represents a landing craft. Two men have already made it safely to the beach (or at least safely for now), while the one on the right is still in the water and the one on the left is already dead.

In these days of the Internet, it’s easy to learn about D-Day or any other historical event without leaving home. Books are good teachers, too, but armchair learning isn't the best type.

Museums and memorials are better teachers. Besides visiting the D-Day memorial in Bedford, I also learned about D-Day at the World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana.

As for the European museums, I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen any of them. At least one was around when I was in Europe as a child, but my father didn’t believe in spending money if he could avoid it.

He did love history, though, so we probably visited the beaches of Normandy. Unfortunately, I don't remember them.

Now that I’m an adult, I would like to go to Normandy and see the places where the D-Day invasion occurred. I’d also like to visit the D-Day museums in Arromanches, France, and Portsmouth, England.

Because that's the best way to learn history.

D-Day: Death and Deliverance

June 6, 1944. Allied forces landed in Normandy in a surprise invasion (surprise as to location more than timing). Nearly 10,000 Allied servicemen died in the invasion, but it eventually led to the defeat of the Germans and the deliverance of Europe. And no, the D in D-Day doesn't stand for death or defeat or deliverance. It simply means the day chosen to begin the offensive.

June 2, 2011. (Or fill in the date when your Christian loved one died.) D-Day of another kind. Death and deliverance for a good friend after a long battle with cancer.

When Vacation Bible School starts later this month, it will be the first time in thirty years that Alice hasn't been at the helm. She will also leave a void among the participants in the annual church-sponsored mission trip to teach VBS at Native American villages in Alaska. And I have a hard time realizing that Alice won't be sitting next to me when choir starts up again in the fall. We will all miss her terribly.

June 2, 2011 was the day God chose to defeat Alice's cancer. She no longer lives with the pain and fear it brought. More importantly, everyone who knew her knows that she is worshiping God in heaven, more alive than she ever was during her temporary stay on this earth.

To Don, Mary, and Martha: you will miss your wife and mother terribly at times, and I pray that God comforts you in your loss. But Alice's death was also her deliverance.

For Christians, that's the best news of all.