We have turned the corner and begun the 80th year since our brave American soldiers stormed the beaches at Normandy, France, on D-Day, June 6, 1944.
There are fewer and fewer World War II veterans left with us, and any time we encounter them, it is worth listening to their story and thank them for their service. They represented a united America in a turbulent time, and they changed the world forever.
In the last eight decades, we have seen a lot of change in our world. But in many aspects, we have lost our way.
Our political divisiveness has reached an all-time high, and we sit on the precipice of a presidential election that will split this country even further, as if that even seems possible. If that seems a long way off, it isn’t. Georgia’s presidential primary is March 12, while former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York is set for 13 days later, threatening to drive a larger wedge through our fruited plains.
We battle and bully each other over labels and pronouns, wasting boundless rage on one another as people battle in the streets. So often when our leaders open their mouths, we can’t help but wonder – what would our grandfathers who stormed that beach all those years ago think about the world as it is today?
In 1944, we banded together to defeat pure evil. We defended those who could not defend themselves. We kept alive a dream so everyone could enjoy the freedoms commonplace here in America.
For the better part of a century, we have clung onto those freedoms for dear life. We have faced other challenges that tested our resolve, and we remained. But there are cracks and fractures. We are not the united America we once were.
On that day in 1944, when those brave men were unloaded from their amphibious troop carriers to run out to their potential demise, there were only two pronouns that mattered – us and them.
And we won. We saved this world from evil, only to watch us slowly succumb to the one enemy we never considered – ourselves.
We have to come together again. We have to respect each other and the great nation we are privileged to live in. We have to bring our America back to the peak of strength that the Greatest Generation provided for us.
America’s future rests in our hands.