As Living Memory Fades, Our Words Keep D-Day’s Sacrifice Alive
Seventy-five years have passed, but the heroism of the men who stormed the beaches of Normandy still resonates as strongly as it did that June Tuesday in 1944 when America awoke to the news.
This will almost certainly be the last time our country will be able to commemorate such a milestone anniversary while the heroes who participated in the D-Day invasion are still here with us on Earth. Even the very youngest World War II veterans are now well into their 90s.
The country and the world are blessed that more than 180 D-Day veterans were able to join President Trump and other world leaders in France. The living memory of what it means to fight and die “to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity†— as President Roosevelt put it when he spoke to the nation for the first time following the landings — is rapidly fading.
That memory is not merely of a single, bloody day in 1944, or even of the Second World War more broadly. It is the living memory of a generation whose struggle forged the world we enjoy today.
But the ranks of those who listened to those words live while the outcome of that struggle hung in the balance are rapidly dwindling.
The National WWII Museum estimates that there are fewer than half a million American World War II veterans left, out of the more than 16 million who answered the call of duty three-quarters of a century ago. By the time of the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, the museum projects that there will be fewer than 100,000.
