June 6 is a fateful day on the historical calendar. On this day in l944, combined American, British, Canadian and other forces launched the long-anticipated invasion of Europe. The Soviet Union had already turned the tide against Nazi Germany in the east and were chasing the Nazi armies back towards Berlin. On June 6, the USSR's allies formally joined the endgame, dislodging Nazi forces from the French coast and beginning to back them out of France and Belgium. The operation was enormously costly--the 9,000 plus graves in the Normandy American cemetery are proof of that--but there is little doubt that this was the most important military campaign of the 20th century. I hope everyone today will remember all the men and women, living and dead, who made the D-Day launch a success.
On June 6, l968, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles, after his victory in the California Democratic primary over Gene McCarthy. RFK wasn't a perfect man or candidate by any means, but I admired his honesty and courage tremendously. He said flat out that the Vietnam war was a mistake, that he helped to deepen our involvement there and he was running for President to try to undo the mistake he and his brother made. It might have been bad timing, it might have been opportunistic, but I thought he made a compelling case for his candidacy, and his death diminished us.
I was a ten-year-old campaigner in l968, and I liked RFK because he took time out to come over and talk with the little kids at his rally. Anyone who liked kids was at the top of my list. In fact, they still are at the top of my list...
3 comments:
yes that is all so true sometimes i wonder though how much of a difference it would have made since if mrs. rommel would not have had a birthday during that day or stretch of days woud rommel have disobeyed orders to push them to the sea or followed them. he was a conflicted general in his beliefs but not a negetive word was ever said about him by his men or his opponents on the battlefield.
and sometimes i wonder just how much different the us and the world would have been if something would have worked out differntly in la in 1968. he could have truly changed america and the word
yes, that's true, but you can't dwell on what-ifs. you'd be in what-if land for weeks, even years!
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