Today is D-Day.

Today is the day that changed the entire nature of WW2 and saved the world from Nazi Tyranny. On this day some of the true heroes of the 20th century showed what they could do.

Many of them didn't believe they were heroes but just men doing their jobs. If they were ordered to take those guns overlooking Omaha beach then that's what they had to do. Even if they had to climb a sheer cliff under punishing fire to do it.

Some men had to run 5 football fields under mortar, machine gun, sniper, and heavy artillery fire just to do their jobs. Others had to parachute in the dead of night into flooded fields with enemies totally surrounding them. Some of them had no equipment and others with no weapons at all.

Some made it. 4900 didn't. Many are still there in Normandy. They will never be married, have kids, read comics, or invest in and finally enjoy their retirement. They will forever be 18 trying to get out of that landing craft and down that beach, or up that cliff, or get to that rally point to do their jobs.

Their job was to secure the freedom that we all share today. It is the freedom for the French to bad-mouth their sacrifice and deface their crosses, the freedom for Americans to hate America and pay good money to destroy it, and the freedom to call our President a monkey-looking, idiot, Facist, murderer to his face. Their sacrifice allows people to vent their spleens even if they are full of crap.

Their job was to free all of Europe from the yoke of tyranny that sent 6 million hapless people to their deaths because they were the wrong religion. They prevented the extermination of the whole of both the European and Middle Eastern Jewry. They prevented the 100 year Reich from creating a 100 years of darkness and death.

Their job was to literally save the world.

I often wonder if my generation could do these great deeds that these men did. Before 9/11 I could not say yes. My generation was called the ultimate slackers. They were vain, materialistic, filled with ennui, and confounded by the future.

Now they are fighting and dying for another nation far away from their homes and their loved ones. They are giving their lives so that another nation can enjoy the same freedoms that even the French hold dear today. They are doing their jobs.