Today Is the 75th Anniversary of D-Day

On Tuesday, June 6, 1944, the Allied troop landed at Normandy after years of planning. It was the largest seaborne invasion in recorded history, and it was the beginning of the end for the Nazis on the Western Front.

There are lots of ways that D-Day is being marked in the U.S., U.K., and France. It is both a somber occasion, as thousands of Allied troops lost their lives in the siege. It is also a celebratory occasion, as it marks the start of liberation from Nazi occupation.

I can't find precisely the right words to articulate what I am feeling on this day. This particular anniversary of D-Day in this particular year.

I feel frightened by rising authoritarians mark this day as though they are continuing the tradition of liberators.

I feel angry that fascism is once again ascendent, but most of us aren't brave enough to have honest conversations about it.

I feel overwhelmed by grief that humans never seem able to move beyond our basest cruelty toward each other, because we keep empowering power-hungry men with sadistic urges to other and destroy.

I feel determined to persist despite them.

I feel sad that not all everyone who is equally determined to persist, will.

When I was a child learning about WWII in school, they told me never again. They told me never forget.

I have not.