selfish generation – Kingsjester's Blog

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, 81 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.

If our enemies attacked us on American soil , as they did our Naval Station at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7th, 1941 and on September 11th, 2001 at the World Trade Center in NYC and the Pentagon, that cost over 3,000 Americans their lives, would Americans be willing to participate in a draft and to answer the call to fight against evil and oppression?

A good number of this generation thinks that what’s happening in Israel, with Israel trying to eradicate radical Hamas terrorists off the face of the Earth is wrong, after they lost 1,200 Israelis to a Hamas-led Massacre October 7th, 2023.

You’ve got college kids yelling the same chants that Hamas does when they go to war while protesting on their behalf.

Anti-Semitism is being celebrated by the Far Left Useful Idiots in this country.

There are those among this younger generation who seem to care more about popular culture, sexual perversion, and video games than they do about God and country.

And this is a failure not only of the present generation but their parents who dropped them off at malls when they were younger instead of spending time with them and who sent them to schools where they were being indoctrinated and brainwashed against this country.

If this sort of selfishness had existed 81 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,

During every generation, there comes a point, where the previous generation becomes frustrated in their attempts to communicate with the current generation.

The era we are living in now is no different.

However, as far as the effect that this failure to communicate may have on the future of America as a strong and vibrant nation, it is definitely more frightening.

The Christian Post reports that

A San Diego State University study published earlier this month has found that millennials appear to be the least religious generation ever recorded. SDSU psychology professor Jean M. Twenge suggested that one main reason for millennials abandoning religion is rising individualism in American culture, which is less prone to showing commitment to institutions.

“These trends are part of a larger cultural context, a context that is often missing in polls about religion,” Twenge said in an article published by Eureka Alert.

“One context is rising individualism in U.S. culture. Individualism puts the self first, which doesn’t always fit well with the commitment to the institution and other people that religion often requires. As Americans become more individualistic, it makes sense that fewer would commit to religion.”

The detailed study, which published its findings in the journal PLOS One, looked at data from 11.2 million respondents from four nationally representative surveys of U.S. adolescents ages 13 to 18 taken between 1966 and 2014.

The study defined millennials as “American adolescents and emerging adults in the 2010s,” and said that they were “significantly less religious than previous generations (Boomers, Generation X) at the same age.”

The analysis, led by researchers Ramya Sastry from SDSU, along with Julie J. Exline and Joshua B. Grubbs from Case Western Reserve University and W. Keith Campbell from the University of Georgia, presented that twice as many 12th graders and college students today never attend religious services.

Additionally, twice as many 12th graders and entering college students in the 2010s give their religious affiliation as “none,” compared to those in the 1960s-’70s.

“Recent birth cohorts report less approval of religious organizations, are less likely to say that religion is important in their lives, report being less spiritual, and spend less time praying or meditating. Thus, declines in religious orientation reach beyond affiliation to religious participation and religiosity, suggesting a movement toward secularism among a growing minority,” the study said.

The findings noted that millennials are the least religious generation of the last six decades, and possibly in the nation’s history.

Earlier in May, a major Pew Study found that Christianity continues declining in the U.S. as a whole, while the religiously unaffiliated keep rising.

Pew said that Christians as a whole fell from 78.4 to 70 percent of the population between 2007 to 2014, while the religiously unaffiliated group rose to 22.8 percent share of the population. The “nones” now outnumber American Catholics, Pew said, who fell to 20.8 percent.

Some Evangelicals, such as Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, commented on the study by saying that the “increasing strangeness” of Christianity is “good news” for the church.

“Christianity isn’t normal anymore. It never should have been. The increasing strangeness of Christianity might be bad news for America, but it’s good news for the church. The major newspapers are telling us today that Christianity is dying, according to this new study, but what is clear from this study is exactly the opposite: while mainline traditions plummet, evangelical churches are remaining remarkably steady,” Moore said in a statement.

He is exactly right.

The church I attend, which happens to be Southern Baptist, is in the process of growing weekly, with Baptisms being witnessed every Sunday morning.

San Diego State psychology professor Jean M. Twenge’s theory is 180 degrees off.

It is not an act of ‘individualism” which is causing these young people to turn away from the “Faith of Our Fathers”.

It is selfishness and an innate conceit, imbued in them by those, whose familial nurturing and raising, with or without exposure to Christianity, could not compete with the Siren Song of American Popular Culture and secular socialization.

While the Scriptures of our Christian Faith tell us that “nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:37), America’s Popular Culture, reinforced by the current President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, and his fellow “Progressives”, tells those who have achieved, through the Grace of God,

You didn’t build that.

Popular Culture, under the guise of “making the individual feel better about themselves”, actually constrains individual achievement.

These “millennials”, by believing that they are “their own god”, are limiting themselves.

History has shown us, time and again, what happens to a society, when man starts worshiping himself.

As Proverbs 16:18 tells us

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

Right now, you’re probably saying to yourself,

Hold on, KJ, you just said that the individual CAN achieve.

Yes, I did.

Those who have gone before us, such as our Founding Fathers, our military leaders, our civic leaders, and our spiritual and familial leaders, all had one thing in common:

They all possessed a spirit of self-sacrifice.

Not sacrificing their will to achieve for the “good of the State”, but, rather, unselfishly sacrificing their time and talents for the betterment of those around them.

And, that is where the “Progressives” (i.e., Liberals), such as Professor Twenge, get it wrong.

It is not “the State”, nor the community-at-large, that drives, or allows, Individual Americans to succeed.

It is that “still, small voice” that resides within each one of us that has endowed us with our “certain inalienable rights” as Americans, of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”, that gives us the strength and discernment to succeed.

Without God, nothing is possible.

Until He Comes,

Kingsjester's Blog

Tag: selfish generation

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