When we were kids, we had literally boxes and boxes full of little 2 1/2" high plastic toy soldiers. Little green plastic tanks and green plastic cannons, and big plastic mountains representing Iwo Jima and the German Navarone stronghold. We would set them up, sometimes to play war-strategy games with each other, sometimes we would just set them up and imagine them in a quest to liberate our living room from the evil forces striving to make us pick up our toys. Shoot them with rubber bands, "Bang, Bang, you're dead." Then set them up again.
We were given plastic toy rifles, and would run up in the open spaces and hills nearby, pretending we were commandos liberating a hillside or woods from imaginary foes. "Bang Bang, your dead!" We'd cry. Kids who "Died" would count to 20, and then be right back at it. (Sadly, these days, a lot of kids aren't allowed to play with guns anymore. I won't comment further other than to say that times change.)
We'd envision ourselves as the bright and shining good guys, wading ashore, mowing down enemies, indestructible fighting machines.
It was a kid's naive and childish vision of war. I admit I am probably a little ashamed of that now.
I would wholeheartedly recommend watching the movie "Saving Private Ryan" if you haven't seen it yet. This is a more grim, true depiction of what really happened on that day, 80 years ago. Good guys wading ashore, and being mowed down like blades of grass. Not indestructible fighting machines, but flesh and blood, maimed, blasted and torn apart. No "counting to 20" there. No setting them up again like cheap plastic fobs. The death toll and sacrifice that day was ghastly. And every day, I thank those who were called upon to make that sacrifice. To fight and sacrifice for what is important and what we take for granted.
D-Day was 80 years ago and it prompted me to make this post. I was originally gonna post about something else, but thought better of it. Seeing that movie was part of it. Seeing the wall of names at the Vietnam Memorial, or standing on the sunken deck of the Uss Arizona in Hawaii and knowing that most of the crew's bodies were never recovered- that made a huge impression on me as a kid.
Without getting too controversial, it is saddening to see our freedoms under attack, not by uniformed nazis overseas, but by forces in our own country wanting to take them away. In just a couple years, freedoms have already been lost; Our younger generations are already the first in nearly 100 years to have less freedom than those that came before.
But I still am grateful for the sacrifice those soldiers made in Normandy, and for preserving the freedoms that we sadly take for granted today. Anyway, that's about it, see ya.