"...years ago in the thin light of grey dawn, more than 1,000 small craft took to a rough sea on a day that will be forever a day of bravery. On that June morning the young of our nations stepped out on those beaches below and into history. As long as freedom lives, their deeds will never die"
- former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown
because today is the 6th of June, 72 years to the day since the Allied invasion on the beaches of Normandy, the beginning of the end of the war which had ravaged Europe almost beyond recognition.
the day men charged for the cliffs while caught in the carnage of unspeakable slaughter, and with their sacrifice won freedom for those of us to follow.
because bravery doesn't mean the absence of fear.
bravery doesn't mean that you feel fearless.
bravery means throwing your all into the fight, despite the urge to run and hide. bravery means running as fast as you can into the fray while your comrades drop round you, and not turning traitor in the opposite direction.
and the end result of the brave...perhaps not the immediate result, but the end result.. is freedom. freedom that thousands of them never lived to see, having given their all to purchase ours.
see, Normandy was when the free world fought back. Normandy was when the war turned, the tipping scales favored the right.
it wasn't the end - not yet. there was still another year of fighting. but it was the beginning. it was when men stood up and said 'no more', willing to prove with their deaths that evil would not have the final word, and ruin would not reign supreme.
so may we live worthy of that sacrifice.
may we be brave and strong and may we walk free, and may the memory of their courage call us to dare to never give up, no matter the odds, no matter how hard the fight, no matter what part of us dies in the struggle.
because freedom is worth it. freedom is always worth it.
they believed that.
do we?
Very true and well written!!!!!
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