Lessons learned during D-Day still apply today

David W. Kuhns Sr.

Northwest Guardian

The 6th of June used to be one of those days everyone could identify. Now, it seems to be fading into the historically obscure. That’s a shame.

June 6, of course is the anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy in 1944. More than 150,000 American, British and Canadian soldiers stormed across the beaches that day. Thousands died.

The D-Day invasion is now just part of Hollywood film lore for most Americans, I think. Everyone has seen “Saving Private Ryan,” and “Band of Brothers” and “The Longest Day.”

It used to be more personal.

I remember hearing stories from my Sunday school teacher, Tom Kay, when I was in junior high. He went ashore on Omaha Beach, with the first wave. That was the toughest of the beaches — the one that looked like a disaster for much of the day.

When I saw all those movie stars up on the screen, I thought of Mr. Kay. It made it more than a drama — it was personal.

When you get older, you find a lot of those events you feel connected to begin to fade away for others.

World War II and Korea, so near to me as I was growing up, are as remote to today’s Soldiers as the Spanish American War was to me. Even Vietnam — my generation’s great struggle — has receded into the history books.

It was a real shock to me recently, to realize that there are plenty of Soldiers now, who were infants during Desert Storm. Before you know it, Iraq and Afghanistan will be memories only for the old guys. That is the way things go. But we need to fight against the loss of knowledge that can go along with the passage ot time.

There are lessons that will always be current. Just as Soldiers still learn principals of leadership by studying the actions of Col. Joshua Chamberlain on Little Round Top during the Battle of Gettysburg. Soldiers of tomorrow need to benefit from the actions of Stryker-equipped infantrymen in Mosul or Diyala Province.

There will be value in the future from recent experience building roads in Afghanistan or constructing outposts on mountaintops near the Pakistan border.

The tactics used by GIs struggling to get off of Omaha Beach and through the German fortifications in 1944, are valid for combat today.

The equipment gets better, some techniques change, but much remains the same.

We need to stay connected with our past. So don’t just look on those events of the past as the subjects for movies. D-Day, the 6th of June, was — and is — important.

There are lessons there for us all, we just have to look for them.