If you are not sure, I can tell you--most likely many were on the beaches at Normandy in France. A military move codenamed Operation Overlord—landed some 156,000 Allied soldiers on the beaches of Normandy by the end of the day. Read about this epic invasion at this site:
I am a history student, a student of WWII of the first water, and that follows that I am a student of D-Day. I don't let this day pass without remembering that I owe my very life and existence to this day and the days that led up to this invasion. Just last night I watched a presentation about the Seabees who landed on Iwo Jima. These builders of the armed forces served in the Construction Battalion (CB) and if you want to read about these warriors here's the Wikipedia info:
I have close knowledge of these men as one of my bestie friends had a father who was a Seabee. I could never imagine this quiet man in the middle of the mayhem he must have endured--building, but with a weapon hanging from his hip at the same time for protection. Her father-in-law was in the war too and the story he lived could have only happened with the hand of God protecting him.
My father? He was in France somewhere also, and in August did some heroic act that garnered for him the Bronze Star AND Purple Heart. What did he do? I do not know. This is the generation that fought the war and came home to talk of it very little.
I tried to procure my father's records, going through channels, only to find a huge fire wiped out many records of our veterans. So it shall remain a mystery as to my father's contribution to the great World War II.
But the record does not matter as long as I draw breath, because often I stop and think of these men, and thank God for them, and thank God for the victory they won. Of course all wars heinous. But I am still grateful for my life, and my child's life and my granddaughter's existence because such men went and fought, some gave all so I could know a blessed existence.
I just hope the WORLD remembers all the wars and their effects, so we don't create our own Armageddon.
GOD BLESS THE TROOPS, MEN AND WOMEN, who secured my peaceful existence.
“They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate.” — President Franklin D. Roosevelt's official address announcing the invasion
