D-DAY: 1944 vs 2008

FDR, PRAYER, GOD, D-DAY, TODAY

No matter what we may think of FDR—and what I think is ambivalent at best—the man had a soul and seemed to love his country. Same goes for JFK, along with a comparable ambivalence. However, this speech by FDR, delivered while the invasion of Normandy was in progress, stands in stark contrast with the thinking of too many of our leaders today.

That invasion didn’t take a day, of course. Dubbed “Operation Overlord,” it consisted of a great armada of some 7000 ships and landing craft, almost 200,000 allied naval personnel, 850,000 troops, of which 133,000 stormed the beaches on June 6th, 1944 and suffered over 10,000 casualties. A year of of bitter, bloody fighting ensued, culminating with the liberation of Paris on August 25th and the ultimate surrender of Nazi Germany eight months later. (For a synopsis and D-Day pictures, please see http://www.paperlessarchives.com/d-day_documents.html.)

That mini-history lesson brings us back to FDR’s speech. A few excerpts:

“Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. . . They will need Thy blessings. . .

“Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom. . .

“With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. . . Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace — a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

“Thy will be done, Almighty God. Amen.”

I refuse to engage in partisan attacks on this the sixty-fourth anniversary of the beginning of the Normandy Invasion. Rather, I would point to where we were sixty-four years ago in terms of faith in our Judeo-Christian God, faith in our troops, faith in our country, and faith in our ourselves as a people and ask: How many of our leaders today could have written or spoken those inspirational words of FDR?

(For FDR’s complete D-Day speech, please see http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/fdr-prayer.htm.)