If you are reading this post then you are reading it in a state of freedom that was bought for you at great cost. Your right to read this piece without fearing a knock at the door from the secret police was bought for you by all who fell or who were damaged by the fight against tyranny.
75 years ago today the beaches of Normandy were stormed by Allied troops in the greatest sudden deployment of troops in history. Many of the young men who exited the boats on the various beaches did not live to see the victory over Hitlerism that they fought for.
We have freedoms to enjoy today because of these men who stepped onto hostile soil bought them for us.
Our freedoms were bought by almost countless men from British villages where the population was already overshadowed by grim memorials to the loss of life in the 1914-1918 War. Liberation for France and the rest of Europe also came from those who, if things had been different would have lived out their lives relatively peacefully in the United States, Canada and other Allied nations. These men paid for us to live. We must remember them.
Some of us have more cause than others to be grateful for the past sacrifices of others. I look to the right of the desk I am sitting at writing this piece and I can see the CCTV monitor that shows an image of our son. Neither he nor my wife or myself would be here today had it not been for those who fought. Even the briefest perusal of the plans, published post war, that Hitler had for the United Kingdom would show that his plans for these Islands would not include me or mine. He had a list of people to intern or exterminate and others who may be amenable to collaborating had the Nazis taken Britain (this list would have included my wife’s great uncle who was not only a Jewish doctor, but had helped the Royal Air Force improve British fighter planes).
We are here today because people from all walks of life landed on the beaches of Normandy and fought for our freedoms and our right to live in freedom. One day there will be no more Normandy veterans left and the various governments will scale down the official commemorations, it will then fall to us, the populations of the various Allied nations and those who were freed by them, to carry the remembrance on. One way that we can do that is by defending the freedoms that were bought at so great a cost by the men who carried out the D Day landings. If we lose these freedoms through carelessness or inaction then we will have failed to properly remember what thousands upon thousands of men fought and died for.
