The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest
 

Vol: 33 Issue: 6 - Sunday, June 06, 2004

Special Report:  D-Day, The Sixth of June
by Jack Kinsella

The commemoration ceremonies to mark D-Day are usually a time of
bittersweet sadness for me.  I was raised by World War Two's survivors --
my parents were married in London on May 22, 1940 -- during the height of
the London Blitz.  World War Two's survivors shaped my world.

My father's best friend was a Dutchman named Ike.  They met in Holland
when Ike was with the Dutch resistance.  When Dad returned to Canada after
the war, he brought Ike and Anna and their kids with him.  'Uncle' Ike and
'Aunt' Anna were fixtures around my house when I was growing up.

Veterans of that conflict were my teachers.  Most of my friends' fathers'
were veterans, as were all my father's friends. My grandfather was a
veteran of BOTH World Wars.

There was something about them -- they were quiet giants.  These quiet
giants not only shaped my world, they were the ones running it.

When I was growing up in the fifties, Allied Supreme Commander General
Dwight David Eisenhower, the man that put D-Day together, was sitting in
the Oval Office.  The Senate and House were filled with D-Day veterans.
My father trusted them.

I listened to some of the D-Day veteran's stories on TV  -- one 83
year-old told of his experiences without bitterness, ending by mentioning
the recent loss of his wife of 59 years.

To me, he was another example of why those quiet giants earned the
nickname, "the Greatest Generation."  This vet didn't criticize his
leadership when his ship was shot out from under him.  He didn't even hold
any bitterness towards the German who fired the fatal shot.  He came home
and lived quietly for fifty-nine years with the bride of his youth.

The quiet giants of my youth who stormed the beaches at Normandy are now
either dead or in their eighties. I been blessed to have known such men
all my life -- each D-Day commemoration reminds me of who they were and it
gives me such sadness to know that soon they will be gone.  I will miss
them all.

D-Day, the sixth of June, is especially sad this year, with the passing of
the greatest member of the 'Greatest Generation', President Ronald Reagan.
With his children and Nancy at his bedside in the Bel Air neighborhood of
Los Angeles, the president was pronounced dead at 1 p.m. PDT on June 5, as
the D-Day commemorations were kicking in to high gear.

When asked to name the greatest American president of all time, President
Reagan is consistently among the top five.  In a Gallup poll taken in
2001, President Reagan was at the top of the list.

His last ten years were a living hell as Alzheimer's Disease ravaged his
mind.  At a fund-raiser in May, Nancy Reagan admitted; "Ronnie's long
journey has finally taken him to a distant place where I can no longer
reach him."

It is with bittersweet sadness that we note his long journey is at last at
an end. This D-Day, the sixth of June, there is another quiet giant at
that heavenly reunion.

I pray for the comfort of a nation at his passing.

"But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which
are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if
we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep
in Jesus will God bring with him. . ."

"Wherefore comfort one another with these words." (1st Thessalonians
4:13-14,18)