There's an Update on Security for Biden's Gaza Port and a New 'Peacekeeping...
Biden Blows Off Respects for Murdered New York City Police Officer
New York City Councilwoman Gets Ratioed Into Oblivion Over One Question
Federal Court Makes Major Ruling on Ballot Verification in Pennsylvania
Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced in Massive Crypto Fraud Case
‘No Tampons, No Peace!’: Panic at Vanderbilt University Sit-In As Protestors Realize It...
Charlotte Radio Host Speaks Out About His Interview With KJP That Made Headlines
Trump, Biden Will Both Be in New York on Thursday...but for Very Different...
Democrat Flips Republican District in Alabama Special Election. Here's What She Campaigned...
Flashback: Two Cycles After Running on Gore's Ticket, Lieberman Endorses McCain at GOP...
Here's When Impeachment Articles Against Mayorkas Will Be Presented to the Senate
Tennessee Music Venue to Host ‘Trans Day Of Vengeance’ Event One Year After...
There Was Very Little Pete Buttigieg Was Able to Tell Us About Bridge...
An Illegal Alien Encouraged Others to Invade American Homes. Here's What Happened Next.
Time for Another Bizarre, Easily-Disprovable Lie From Joe Biden
OPINION

Learn From History

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

History is one of our greatest teachers.

It's just too bad so many of our young people think history started with the death of Princess Di or the birth of the iPhone.

Advertisement

I was painfully reminded of America’s historical illiteracy and the failure of our educational system last week while golfing with a few strangers in Burbank, Calif.

One of the young men in my foursome was about 30 and ran a restaurant in Los Angeles.

When I told him in passing that I was going to be flying to Normandy, France, the next morning to raise a flag at an American cemetery there, his awful education betrayed him.

“Why would there be an American cemetery at Normandy?” he asked.

I thought he was kidding me, but he wasn’t.

“Why?” I asked. “Did you ever see ‘Saving Private Ryan’?”

“No.”

“Did you ever see ‘The Longest Day’?”

“No.”

“Do you remember the Second World War?”

“I knew there was a war.”

“Do you know anything about D-Day?”

He looked at me like, “Huh?”

I was shocked – and blunt.

“You don’t know why there’d be an American cemetery at Normandy? You’re proof the education system of this country sucks.”

After my golf outing, I flew to Normandy for the weekend. I had the honor of raising the flag over the American cemetery at Normandy on Sunday and visiting the small town of Sainte-Mere-Eglise, which became the first French town liberated from the Germans in World War II.

Advertisement

U.S. airborne troops captured the tiny town before dawn on June 6, 1944, to prevent German troops from using roads to attack Americans landing at Utah and Omaha beaches.

(For those who know their World War II history only from the movies, the airdrop at Sainte-Mere-Eglise is shown in “The Longest Day” and features Red Buttons as paratrooper John Steele, who played dead after his parachute got hung up on the church steeple.)

It was great to visit little Sainte-Mere-Eglise and its 1,600 people. I met some of the few remaining 90-something soldiers who fought at Normandy and I talked to elderly French people who remember when hundreds of brave young Americans dropped from the sky to liberate their town.

But I was disappointed to learn that our government seems to have forgotten about marking the anniversary of D-Day.

In fact, the Obama administration is doing so little this year that the French government is pulling out of the annual event and the American honor guard is being forced to pay its own airfare to Normandy.

As for the 2014 anniversary, the last major 10-year celebration that will include surviving veterans of D-Day, it also is being neglected by the Obama administration.

President Clinton nominated someone to be in charge of the 1994 anniversary two years in advance. But as of this date, no one has been nominated to be in charge of the 70th anniversary of D-Day in 2014.

Advertisement

I’m sure President Obama will eventually find time between his never-ending campaigning and his serial golf outings to choose someone to oversee the 2014 D-Day anniversary events in Normandy.

But it was embarrassing for me to go the Airborne Museum in Sainte-Mere-Eglise and be asked why “my government” doesn’t care about the D-Day anniversaries.

The people of Sainte-Mere-Eglise love Americans because America saved them. They will never forget D-Day. They still have a dummy of an American paratrooper hanging from their church steeple.

What happened at D-Day wasn’t just a movie. It was history.

If we don’t talk about it, if we don’t teach it, if we don’t honor its anniversary, if we don’t tell guys like my young golf buddy why what happened there was so important, it might as well have never happened.

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Recommended

Trending on Townhall Videos