On the 76th Anniversary of D-Day

Courage, true courage is only displayed when you know that your odds of defeat are higher than your odds of victory, yet you forge ahead because the prospect of victory is more important than the preservation of self.

Courage, resolute courage is what was displayed on the beaches of France 76 years ago when 156,000 soldiers from 12 Allied nations left those transports and stormed the beaches with the singular goal of winning that sandy shore inch by bloody inch.

They charged those beaches because they believed a world with choice in it was better than a world without. They charged those beaches because they believed a world where we could disagree with our government was better than a world in which we could not. They charged those beaches because they believed that people should live their lives as they saw fit and not as the Führer dictated. They charged those beaches because they believed a world with many equal races was better than a world with one master race. They charged those beaches because they believed in a world where the voiceless should be heard, and the weak should be defended. They charged those beaches because they believed the world should be better.

They charged those beaches because of fear. Fear that defeat that day was the defeat of Europe and that the defeat of Europe was the defeat of the free world and that the defeat of the free world was the end.

They faced Death, himself, with their honor intact. He came for them all that day. Black, white, brown, Christian, Jew, Muslim, agnostic, atheist, father, son, brother, straight and gay. None were spared his wrath. They fell together because they believed that freedom for all was more important than their singular life.

Time and distance are corrosive agents to history. They warp and distort the further we are removed. We must make clear to our children and future generations that what those men fought for was not a singular vision. They did not fight for one version of America or the world. They fought so that we could preserve the freedom to have many versions of our country and the broader world. They fought for the beauty of diversity. They fought to preserve the good, the bad, and the ugly. They fought for choice and they fought for the right for each of us to live our lives as we see fit as long as we bring no harm to others.

The heroes who never left the beaches of Normandy that day died believing in a greater good. They died believing in the promise of America. They died so that we could continue to live. They died for a vision of the world that we have not yet achieved.

They died in the fight to preserve the equality of many over the dominance of one.

We have achieved that equality on paper since those young men laid down their lives, but we have not achieved that equality in practice.

We must continue that fight for equality that began at Lexington and Concord, that fight for true equality that forever changed the rolling hills of Gettysburg, that saw the Harlem Hellfighters through more battles than any other American unit in World War I, that turned the waters off Normandy as red as Moses Nile in Egypt, that carried the first desegregated units through the harsh winters of Korea, that saw brothers in blood through the jungles and paddies of Vietnam, that guided Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to Montgomery, that fight for true equality that carries on to this very today.

Those men died that day so that we could one day fulfill that promise of America.

We must honor their deaths by doing more, by participating more, by speaking up more when we see injustice, by listening more to the silenced voices, by standing behind those who need our support and by standing in front of and shielding those that need our protection.

Those men on the beaches of Normandy died on this day, 76 years ago, for us. We must make them proud by continuing the fight.