Caffeine Coder

It’s been 65 years since allied forces launched the biggest invasion force ever known, in an attempt at breaking the German hold on Europe. Tomorrow will mark the official day that everyone remembers as it was the 6th of June 1944 that saw brave men from the allied forces fight on the beaches and in the fields of France.

It is the 5th of June that stands out for me though. If not for the weather, the allied forces would have already launched. Bad weather meant that our troops faced a long wait at a time when fear and aprehension were already at extremely high levels. These brave men had to wait, some cooped up on boats, others on airfields, all waiting for the final order to go.

I can’t imagine what was going through men’s minds at that time, though I have read transcripts and seen interviews, it is something I have never experienced and so cannot fathom. Just when you may have resigned yourself to whatever may come, you are told to just wait and wait… and wait… All that extra time to think and wonder and worry.

At just after midnight on the 6th of June, the first allied troops to land in Normandy as part of the invasion stepped onto Pegasus bridge the waiting was over, the battle had begun. Omaha, Uta, Gold Juno and Sword – the beaches that we all know from the history books, were to be the places where lives were immesurably changed forever.

I have visited the fields of battle that cover 2 World Wars, and read numerous accounts of the battles and biographies of soldiers involved. I have seen the graves of the fallen and spoken to those that survived. I’m no expert on the subject, and I’ve never been a soldier. I am, however, imesurably grateful to all those men who fought, sarificed and ultimately overcame in situations where victory often looked impossible. Your character and tenacity is an inspiration whether you meant it to be or not.

Unfortunately man’s inhumanity to man seems to know no restraint despite the horror and loss of two world wars.  Battles have been fought since, and we now have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting, what seems to me, an impossible battle against a determined enemy hell bent on the destruction of the free world.

I can’t begin to understand the reasons behind the conflict, though many observers have tried to explain it. Nor can I begin to understand what it takes to be a soldier in todays arena of war. I know that our freedom is under threat today as much as it was 65 years ago, and once again brave men fight and kill to preserve my freedom and to somehow keep death and destruction far away from me so that I may enjoy that freedom.

I am grateful to the brave men and women who fought 65 years ago and I’m grateful to those that fight today.

To those who have travelled to Normandy in rememberance of the fallen it is a difficult time, full of memories that often surface much pain and feelings of great loss, I hope that comfort somehow finds you.

To all troops past and present… Thank You.