D-Day, also called the Battle of Normandy, was fought on June 6, 1944, between the Allied nations and German forces occupying Western Europe. To this day, over 79 years later, it  still remains the largest seaborne invasion in history. Almost three million troops crossed the English Channel from England to Normandy to be used as human cannon fodder in an invasion of occupied France.

Among the young men who stepped off those boats, in a hail of gunfire, was a fellow named Edward, whom everyone called Ned, from the small town of Helena, Arkansas.  Already in his young life, Ned had been forced to drop out of school in the sixth grade, in order to work at the local movie theatre to help support his mother, brother, and sister, faced with the ravages of the Great Depression.

He later went on to help build the US Highway 49 Helena Bridge across the Mississippi River.

He was a gentle man who loved to laugh and sing, having recorded several 78 rpm records in the do-it-yourself booths of the day. And now, he found himself, a Master Sergeant in an Army Engineering Unit, stepping off a boat into the unknown, watching his comrades being mercilessly gunned down around him.

Ned, along with the rest of his unit who survived the initial assault, would go on to assist in the cleaning out of the Concentration Camps, bearing witness to man’s inhumanity to man.

The horrors he saw had a profound effect on Ned.  One which he would keep to himself for the remainder of his life.  While his children knew that he served with an Engineering Unit in World War II, they did not know the full extent of his service, until they found his medal, honoring his participation in the Invasion of Normandy, going through his belongings, after he passed away on December 29, 1997.

He was my Daddy.

Today, all across the world, Fathers will be honored by their children, natural, adopted, foster, and those whom they took in as one of their own.

Did you ever wonder how this Global Remembrance got started?

There are two stories which are attributed as being the origin of Father’s Day.

According to the first tale, it all began in 1910, when Sonora Smart-Dodd of Spokane, Washington, tried to figure out a way in which to honor her dad, a remarkable man, who had single-handedly raised six children. Sonora, naturally, loved her dad with all her heart, and wanted everyone to recognize him for what he had done for her entire family. She made the decision to declare day of tribute, a Father’s Day, if you will, on her father’s birthday – June 19.

The next year, Sonora contacted the local churches in an attempt to get them to throw their support behind the celebration, but they simply laughed her off. After that setback, it took a while before Sonora’s proposal once again started gaining attention.

A bill in support of a national remembrance of Father’s Day was introduced in 1913. The bill was approved by US President Woodrow Wilson three years later. The bill received further support from President Calvin Coolidge in 1924.

This brought about the formation of a National Father’s Day Committee in New York within the next two years. However, our Federal Government, not exactly being strong in the pursuit alacrity, took another 30 years before a Joint Resolution of Congress officially recognized Father’s Day. Then, implementation of the bill was postponed another 16 years until President Richard Nixon declared third Sunday of June as Father’s Day in 1972.

The second story of the origin of Father’s Day involves Dr. Robert Webb of West Virginia. According to this version, the first Father’s Day service was conducted by Webb at the Central Church of Fairmont in 1908.

Around my house, we always thought that Hallmark and Walmart invented it.

Like you other fathers out there, I am asked every year what I want for my Father’s Day Gift.

The one present I want…I can’t have.

I wish that I had one more day with my Daddy.

My Daddy was the most important man in my life and remains so to this day.

He taught me how to love others through his actions every day of his life. He was a wonderful Christian man, who led me to Christ.

He was also the bravest man I have ever known, landing at Normandy Beach on D-Day.

My Daddy worked hard all of his life. He worked for Sears for 20 years. He taught me what hard work was and yet he always had time for me.

I wish that I had one more day to walk through Court Square Park in Memphis, Tennessee feeding the pigeons and the squirrels with my Daddy.

I wish that I had another opportunity to sit on the living room floor at Christmas and play Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots with him.

I wish that I had another chance to stand over to the side on Thanksgiving Afternoon and watch him, as he played Penny-ante Poker, “cutting up” with my mother and my aunts and uncles.

I wish that I could hear him singing “The Old Rugged Cross” in the kitchen again, with his beautiful tenor voice.

I wish that I could watch him again, sitting at the breakfast table simultaneously looking through his old Cokesbury Hymnbook and his Book on Hymnology, researching those great old hymns and taking notes, so that he could tell his 150 member Sunday School Class about the hymn which he was going to lead them in singing that Sunday Morning.

I wish that I could watch my Daddy playing with my baby daughter again, sticking out the lower plate of his dentures, as she tried to grab it.

I wish that I could see them again out in the driveway, sitting in his 1978 Chevrolet Caprice Classic with her in the driver’s seat as they waited for the school bus to pick her up for pre-school.

I wish that I could spend another Christmas Morning with him to watch the fun as he gave my sister her yearly “gag gift”, just to watch her jump and squeal as the “snake” or “mouse” jumped out of the box.

I wish that I could sit and watch Saturday Morning Memphis Wrestling and then another Johnny Weissmuller “Tarzan” movie with him on a Saturday afternoon…or maybe a Three Stooges Short, just to hear him laugh.

It’s funny, y’know.

I look in the mirror at 64 years old… and I see him.

I look back over the years at the things that I did with the children that God brought into my life to care for and then I see the things that I’m doing now with my 10 year-old grandson, and I see my Daddy in myself.

Nowadays in America, it is harder than ever to be a Dad. Any male who is not impotent can sire a child…as is being proven daily across our country.

However, it takes a man to be a Daddy, a Papa, a Pop, a Pops, somebody’s Old Man, or simply, a Father.

I’ve had the privilege of having a hand in raising three step-sons, one nephew, and one very special daughter.  I would not give back one moment of those experiences for anything that this world can offer.

I was not a perfect role model.  I made mistakes…a lot of them.  But, looking back, I know, in my heart, that I’ve made a difference in their lives. And, I thank the One Who Made Me for that opportunity.

I pray that I was able to pass along at least some of my Daddy’s Legacy of Christian Love to those I have had a hand in raising.

Dads…it costs nothing to pay attention….and give love.

Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it. – Proverbs 22:6

Daddy, I wish you were here so I could tell you how much I love you and miss you.

I hope you’re proud of me.

Every good thing that I am, came from the life lessons which I learned from you and the Love and Amazing Grace of my Heavenly Father.

Today, while you’re up in Heaven, I hope you hug Mother and tell her,

That’s “Baby Brother”!

I love you very much, Daddy.

Happy Fathers Day.

Love,

“Brother”

Until He Comes,

KJ

D-Day, also called the Battle of Normandy, was fought on June 6, 1944, between the Allied nations and German forces occupying Western Europe. To this day, 79 years later, it  still remains the largest seaborne invasion in history. Almost three million troops crossed the English Channel from England to Normandy to be used as human cannon fodder in an invasion of occupied France.

The twelve nations who participated in the invasion included Australia, Canada, Belgium, France, Czechoslovakia, Greece, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, the United Kingdom, and, of course. the United States of America.

The codename for the invasion was Operation Overlord. The assault phase was known as Operation Neptune. Operation Neptune began on D-Day (June 6, 1944) and ended on June 30. Operation Overlord also began on D-Day, and ended with the crossing of the River Seine on August 19.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower faced a daunting task in the planning of such a massive invasion. He would have to move his forces 100 miles across the English Channel and storm a heavily fortified coastline. His enemy was the weapon-and-tank-superior German army commanded by the “Desert Fox” Erwin Rommel, one of the most brilliant generals of the war.

Less than 15 percent of the young men called upon to sacrifice their lives for our freedom in the invasion had ever seen combat.

A crossing of the unpredictable and dangerous English Channel had not been attempted since 1688. Once the invading forces set out, there was no turning back. The channel was soon hosting a 5,000-vessel armada that stretched as far as the eye could see, transporting both men and vehicles across the channel to the French beaches. Not to mention, the Allies also launched 4,000 smaller landing craft and more than 11,000 aircraft.

By the time the sun set on June 6, more than 9,000 Allied soldiers were dead or wounded, and more than 100,000 had made it ashore, capturing French coastal villages. Within weeks, supplies were being unloaded at Utah and Omaha beachheads at the rate of more than 20,000 tons per day. By June 11, more than 326,000 troops, 55,000 vehicles, and 105,000 tons of supplies had been landed on the beaches. By June 30, the Allies had established a firm foothold in Normandy. Allied forces crossed the River Seine on August 19.

There has never been an exact count of the sacrifices made on D-Day. Although, it is estimated that more than 425,000 Allied and German troops were killed, wounded, or went missing during the battle. 209,000 of those who lost their lives were Allied forces. In addition to almost 200,000 German troops killed or wounded, the Allies also captured 200,000 soldiers. Captured Germans were sent to American prisoner-of-war camps at the rate of 30,000 per month, from D-Day until Christmas 1944. Between 15,000 and 20,000 French civilians were killed during the battle.

Basically, the invasion of Normandy was a success, due to sheer force of numbers. By July 1944, some one million Allied troops, mostly American, British, and Canadian, were entrenched in Normandy. During the great invasion, the Allies assembled nearly three million men and stored 16 million tons of arms, munitions, and supplies in Britain.

Among the young men who stepped off those boats, in a hail of gunfire, was a fellow named Edward, whom everyone called Ned, from the small town of Helena, Arkansas.  Already in his young life, Ned had been forced to drop out of school in the sixth grade, in order to work at the local movie theatre to help support his mother, brother, and sister, faced with the ravages of the Great Depression.

He was a gentle man who loved to laugh and sing, having recorded several 78 rpm records in the do-it-yourself booths of the day. And now, he found himself, a Master Sergeant in an Army Engineering Unit, stepping off a boat into the unknown, watching his comrades being mercilessly gunned down around him.

Ned, along with the rest of his unit who survived the initial assault, would go on to assist in the cleaning out of the Concentration Camps, bearing witness to man’s inhumanity to man.

The horrors he saw had a profound effect on Ned.  One which he would keep to himself for the remainder of his life.  While his children knew that he served with an Engineering Unit in World War II, they did not know the full extent of his service, until they found his medal, honoring his participation in the Invasion of Normandy, while going through his belongings, after he passed away on December 29, 1997.

The second soldier in this tale was born 41 years after D-Day, in Sun Valley Idaho, to a pair of “Devout Calvinists”, who homeschooled him and his sister, while their parents both worked at jobs, which according to a famous national magazine in 2012, were “nearly off the grid”.

At 16, tired of being cooped up at home, the young man went in search of fencing lessons, and wound up being a ballet “lifter”, moving in with the girl he was “lifting”.

At 20, he left for France, to learn to speak French and join the Foreign legion. Failing miserably at that, he returned home, where he worked for a few years at a local coffee shop.

He joined the Army in 2008, and arrived in Eastern Afghanistan in 2009.

According to his parents, and the “national magazine”, this young man had “a heart for the Afghan people”, which led him to become disgusted with the actions of our nation, whom he was supposed to be fighting for.

The young man would detail his disillusionment with the Afghanistan campaign in an email to his parents three days before he went missing.

“I am sorry for everything here,” he wrote. “These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid.”

Bergdahl also complained about fellow soldiers. The battalion commander was a “conceited old fool,” he said, and the only “decent” sergeants, planning to leave the platoon “as soon as they can,” told the privates — Bergdahl then among them — “to do the same.”

“I am ashamed to be an American. And the title of US soldier is just the lie of fools,” he concluded. “I am sorry for everything. The horror that is America is disgusting.”

His father responded in an email: “OBEY YOUR CONSCIENCE!”

This young man would then desert his post, for the second time, concluding a pair of calculated moves, proven by the fact that he sent his laptop and his personal journal, back to his mother and father.

On his second “walkabout”, he was taken in by local Afghan Muslim Terrorists, with whom he lived for 5 years, converting to their religion and declaring himself a “WARRIOR FOR ISLAM” in 2010.

Some Liberal supporters say his purpose in leaving the base was an attempt to “broker a peace deal”. Others, within his own unit, believe that he wanted to “aid and abed the enemy”.

As far as his “conversion” goes, his defenders are claiming that he did it to insure his own survival, unlike former POWs, who chose death to renouncing God and Country.

The young man was flown back to the country that he betrayed, his freedom having been secured through the release of 5 of the enemy: high-ranking Muslim Terrorists, who had sworn an oath to “destroy the Great Satan” (That’s US.)

Of course, that young man was Bowe Bergdahl.

The man responsible for this inequitable deal is the unapologetic Former (Thank God) President of the United States of America Barack Hussein Obama, the product of an Islamic Private School for the wealthy in Jakarta, Indonesia.

On October 16, 2017, Bowe Bergdahl plead guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. On November 3, 2017, he received a dishonorable discharge from the US Army, avoiding prison time. The military judge also ruled that Bergdahl’s rank be reduced from sergeant to private and he was also required to pay a $1,000 fine from his salary for the next 10 months.

According to the New York Times, those five senior Taliban officials who were held for some 13 years at Guantanamo and exchanged for Bergdahl, held prominent positions across from U.S diplomats and generals led by America’s senior envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in Doha, Qatar during some Afghanistan Peace Talks four years ago.

I kid you not.

I made the comparison between these two soldiers to make a point about the sacrifices made by those thousands of brave Americans 79 years ago today as compared to the selfishness and cowardice shown by Bowe Bergdahl, who was and still is treated as a hero by the Far Left Democratic Party.

If this selfish generation had existed 79 years ago, I have no doubt whatsoever that America would not exist as the Bastion of Freedom which we know it as today.

Why do I feel so strongly about this? And, how did I know so much about Ned?

Ned was my Daddy.  You see, my love of Christ and, of this country, comes from my Earthly father, 40 years my senior.

I was raised by members of the Greatest Generation.

It is today that we pause to remember their sacrifices at home and abroad.

May this day also serve as a reminder of the sacrifices made by our Brightest and Best and their families, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

May God bless them all and may He hold them in the hollow of His hand.

God Bless America.

Until He Comes,

KJ