This morning on my walk, an old guy (my age) asked his walking companion, another old guy, about the flag at half-staff outside the building.  His friend wasn’t sure.  I was passing them by and chimed in “D-Day”.  Ohhhhh.

Not that I’m a wise man.  I asked the guy at the desk when I had checked in the exact same question, so I had a few minutes head start on the others.

Such is how fleeting history memories are, especially in these days of instant access to information, whether true or not seems to make little difference.

Anyone who knows me knows that I take such things seriously…and I was 5 when WWII ended.  I lived part of it.

D-Day was 80 years ago.  Here is how the Eisenhower Presidential Library chronicles it.  The average age of the few who survive is probably about 100 years old.  At the 90th anniversary, possibly there will be one or two left .  There is likely a “last man’s club” already formed.  It’s a not uncommon tradition among survivors.  I include only a single link as the news will be full of information about D-Day at 80.  Here is the Statement issued by the White House.  Later,  [here], I’ll add President Biden’s remarks from Normandy.

There is another D-Day coming up:

Enroute to my walk today I was thinking that five months from today, Nov. 6, 2024, the nation will be waking up to the results of the 2024 election for thousands of positions nationwide, including President of the United States.

Nov. 5, 2024, is indeed a D-Day for the United States, for every one of us.

Most likely, given my age, there will be no dramatic changes in the last years of my own life.  If I think only of myself, maybe I can say “who cares gets elected?”

Of course, I don’t think that way.  We are at a dangerous juncture.

It is the generation of my kids and grandkids and their entire cohort everywhere who will be directly and possibly irrevocably impacted by how the elections everywhere turn out this November.  Most everybody who’ll be elected will be elected for a two or four year term, and it’s not possible to say at the end of election week, “whoops, I think I should have voted” – or made a more careful choice.

(I’ve seen this happen, by the way.  We had at least one “oh, what the hell?” election here – 1998 – where a dark horse won a squeaker over both Republican and Democrat candidates who were both viewed as mediocre by their partisans.  The winner turned out to do okay, but he could have as easily been a disaster.  But people in both parties decided they could throw away their votes for more known quantities to elect a more entertaining guy.)

D-Day is five months away.  Every single individual has a personal stake in what happens on Election Day.  Register, get informed, encourage others, vote.  In a democracy, it is our individual responsibility.  It is not somebody else’s problem.

Recommendations:

1. Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s Lucid column on How Hitler Got to Power.
2. Rachel Maddow’s Ultra Podcast begins season 2 on June 10.  Check it out.
3. If you are wondering: here’s a July 24, 2019 comment in my own blog from someone on this list, who so far as I know is still on the list, commenting on then President Trump: “Well Common criminal [Trump] may be, but he is the best thing this country has seen since Reagan.”  This was five years before the recent 34 Guilty verdicts and numerous indictments in the wings.   We ignore the present at the risk of the future.

POSTNOTE 10 pm June 6: This evening I watched the History Channel reprise of D-Day, as seen through film and interviews of those involved in the actual invasion.  It was a powerful evening.  I was disappointed in myself for not being more aware of the significance of the day earlier in the morning.

My family of origin was pretty heavily involved in WWII, for the most part assigned to the Pacific front.  But I know of four German relatives I never met who were farmers and conscripts in the German Army, and would never talk about the war after it ended.  I really don’t know anyone, at least directly, involved in D-Day.  No difference: war is deadly wherever and for whatever by whomever:  Basically young people draw the short straw to fight to the death against other young people.

As the program ended I was replaying the lyrics of Waltzing Matilda, the Aussie anthem of the hopes, dreams and horrors of WWI.  Here is a version of the song, in memory of all who have served in any way in any war in any country.

And may there be peace on earth.

POSTNOTE 5 a.m. June 7: Excellent commentaries that weave D-Day and Election Day together, here; also. here.