Day 157 - OVERLORD

Today is the 3rd day of the 23rd week, the 6th day of the 6th month, the 157th day of 2023, and:

• Atheist Pride Day
• D-Day
• Drive-in Movie Day
• National Applesauce Cake Day
• National Churro Day
• National Day of Sweden
• National Eyewear Day
• National Gardening Exercise Day
• National Higher Education Day
• National Hunger Awareness Day
• National Huntington's Disease Awareness Day
• National Yo-yo Day
• Queensland Day
• Russian Language Day
• YMCA Day
• World Pest Day

Quote of the day:

"So much of the progress that would define the 20th century, on both sides of the Atlantic, came down to the battle for a slice of beach only six miles long and two miles wide."

~ Barak Obama, president of the US in an address delivered on location to mark the 65th anniversary of D-Day

My father was in the Navy, and he wasn't at D-Day, he was in the Pacific theater.  He never talked about the war at all - nothing about where he was or the men he served with.  I know he was in Japan during the occupation as he brought home some souvenirs of occupied Japan for my mother and his mother.  There were only two comments on his years of service I ever heard him make was that he was never going to eat rice or fruit cocktail because he got enough of both when he was in the Navy.  

Nevertheless, I knew about WWII.  We've all heard the stories, seen the movies, studied the history in school, read the books.  It's hard to imagine now how united the entire country was, how united all the countries were, against the eight  Axis powers [thought there were only three?  Germany, Italy and Japan were joined by Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia], how totally opposed the world was to Nazis and all they stood for.

And just 79 years later?  We actually have people using "Antifa" as a pejorative term for an anti-fascist and supporting increasingly authoritarian leaders, espousing the need for nationalism, and eschewing diversity or inclusion as "woke".  And I wonder, would we unite in the same way to stop Hitler today?