Remembering D-Day

By Kerry Byrne

June 06, 2007

Over the past 1,000 years, only two military men have successfully crossed the English Channel. One is called the Conquerer. The other is called Eisenhower.

Maybe that's why I've been utterly fascinated by D-Day -- 63 years ago today -- ever since I was a small child. I was there, on June 6, 2004, at St. Mere Eglise, the French village liberated by American paratroopers on D-Day and immortalized in the book and movie "The Longest Day." The entire town today is a shrine to the lost, confused and heroic American boys who took the economy flight on their first trip to Europe. Monuments and markers signify the spots where many of them fell -- and many of them died. An effigy of an American paratrooper hangs from the church bell tower, a constant reminder of Pvt. John Steele, who was caught in that precarious position on the day the town was freed from the Nazis. The French have not forgotten, folks, certainly not in Normandy.

Everything about D-Day blows my mind: the organization, the creativity, the deception, the overpowering industrial might, the sheer logistics -- hell, they laid a gas pipeline under the channel to power all the tanks and trucks landing on the other side -- and, mostly, the humanity and inhumanity of it all, the horror and, yes, the heroism. I can barely juggle a few writing gigs. Eisenhower organized the largest invasion force and logistical enterprise ever assembled and ordered millions of men into battle. One historian or politician (who it was escapes me) described D-Day as the most unselfish act in the history of man. Tossing a buck to the guy panhandling outside Starbucks just doesn't compare. the rest

Audio: FDR's D-Day prayer