Dispatches from Home – D-Day 75th anniversary.

About a week ago, I watched “Saving Private Ryan” for the first time. For those who have seen the movie, you know that the opening scene depicts the landing in all its gory, bloody horror. The screams of the dying and the shouts of the living to move forward under withering machine gun fire are acid-etched in my memory. But a later scene, which so clearly indicated the martyrdom of the thousands of young soldiers who died that day for the cause of freedom, was the most poignant.

The silence of that scene was broken only by the waves breaking against the shore and the mournful cry of the seagulls in flight above the carnage below. As the camera pans the scene, the tawny-brown seawater is tinged red, blood red, with the lifeblood of the dead and the dying. It was their blood shed for you and me that assured the freedoms we so quickly take for granted in this self-centered, self-indulgent world in which we live!

On this day, remember their sacrifice, their deaths, and their victories over the forces of evil. May God rest their souls in His eternal Home.

Kind regards, Anthony (Originally published June 6, 2019)