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| Europe |
| Peggy Noonan writing on D-Day |
| 2004-06-05 |
| Wall Street Journal Just a taste: go read it all. Television will be full of reports this weekend of the festivities surrounding the 60th anniversary of D-Day. This has me thinking of why we still talk about the invasion, why television news producers are certain we are interested, and why the programmers of movie channels believe we will want to see "The Longest Day" again, and "Saving Private Ryan." The Normandy invasion was a great moment in history (brave men joining together to do the right thing) and a definitive moment (the Nazi hold on Europe was loosed; in less than a year Berlin would fall). These are reasons enough. But there is this, too: We are human and love stories that show humanity as brave and selfless. It exalts us. We need to be exalted. . . . When you think man isn’t much, when you think human beings are pretty low as beings go, it leaches love from you. It leaches love from your soul when you think we’re all nothing much, we’re dust in the wind, it’s dog eat dog. When you can see us as more than that, it helps you enter each day. It helps you live. We think about D-Day, and Harry the King at Agincourt, and George Meade at Gettysburg, to help us live. |
| Posted by:Mike |