Let D-Day legacy inspire peace

My daughter Brooke is a freshman in high school now. She is studying American history this semester. Her recent homework assignment focused on the events of World War II, including the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. The world recognizes that battle as the D-Day Invasion, a battle that secured the freedom of mankind from the hold of the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler.

Brooke was waiting for me as I walked in the door from work one evening. She asked if I would review her history paper for corrections. I loosened my necktie, turned on the lamp next to my soft leather chair and began to read.

ODDS STACKED AGAINST ALLIES

Brooke wrote that the invasion of Normandy was the greatest amphibious assault in the history of the world. A 5,000-vessel armada participated in the landing of Allied troops on French soil. Those Allied soldiers faced almost insurmountable odds against a well-fortified and more experienced German Army. She wrote that rough seas and deadly artillery shelling contributed to a high casualty count even before the soldiers made their way ashore. Ten-thousand Allied troops lost their lives in the first day of fighting alone. Brooke and I wondered where those young men found the courage to do their duty under such circumstances.

“Did you read how many different nations fought for the Allies in that battle, Dad?” she asked.

“I am getting to that part now, Brooke”, I replied.

I read that 12 Allied nations provided fighting units that participated in the invasion: Australia, Canada, Belgium, France, Czechoslovakia, Greece, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The battle continued until the Allied forces crossed the Seine River on August 19, 1944, by which time there were over 200,000 Allied casualties.

“So many men died, Dad”, Brooke said softly. Then she pointed to the pictures at the end of her report of broken and starved concentration camp survivors liberated by many of the same troops that had fought on the beaches of Normandy. Her questioning eyes looked to me for answers. With what words does a father explain the madness of the Holocaust to his young daughter?

LINCOLN PROVIDES INSIGHT

A few days later, I found a description of tyranny given by Abraham Lincoln in his October 15, 1858, debate with Stephen Douglas. Abraham Lincoln said:

“It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, ‘You work and toil and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.’ No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.”

Perhaps no other words could better answer Brooke’s questions of the tyranny of men than those spoken by Abraham Lincoln more than 86 years before the invasion of Normandy ever occurred.

This June 6, the world will remember that great battle of right and wrong that was the Battle of Normandy, and we will recall the triumph of ordinary men against extraordinary odds and extraordinary evil. And perhaps, in the remembrance of that long ago struggle of those young soldiers, the world will find the inspiration to forge a lasting freedom and peace for all of its citizens.

David Bobovnyik is a lawyer who writes from time to time, often about his memories of growing up on Youngstown’s West Side.