When I worked at the Wagoner Tribune, one of the older military veterans, Arlie “Lee” Wilson, had participated in Operation Overlord, aka D-Day, which began on June 6, 1944. It was a main offensive in the European Theater of World War II that would result in the surrender of Nazi Germany about a year later.
Wilson passed away back in 2013. He was born in 1924. There’s not that many WWII veterans still alive, nonetheless those who stormed the beaches of Normandy or parachuted over France. Those who fought and those who died did so to make sure an evil empire like the Third Reich would never come to power again.
Yet I just saw neo-Nazis marching at Pride rally in Athens, Ga. It’s a shame most of those don’t realize the sacrifices their elders made. What’s worse is how people on the other side were forced into the war against their will. By the winter of 1945, a lot of more experienced German military personnel had been killed, captured or seriously injured that they couldn’t fight anymore. Movies like Land of Mine, set during the summer of 1945, show how a lot of German soldiers were just boys, barely in their teens, turned into the whipping children because of the actions of Adolf Hitler and others who followed him.
People like Wilson or “Lee” as he was often called by everyone in town himself was a teenager when he joined and he had just recently turned 20 when Overlord happened. So many others were just young teenage boys forced to become men before they could even the last days of innocence of their childhoods.
Wars should always be the last resort when all methods of diplomacy have been exhausted or when other humans are being harmed, brutalized and murdered and time is of the essence. If there is one thing we can do is to prevent future wars as much as possible. That’s one of the best ways to honors those who gave all.
Zane Says 