An anecdote that Martha posted about her parents on June 5, 2024
As Americans celebrate tomorrow’s 80th anniversary of D-Day, I’m feeling sentimental about my parents. Just gotta share this personal story, which they told me over and over throughout my childhood.
My folks married on June 5, 1937, which was 87 years ago today.
Seven years later, in 1944, as that anniversary approached, Daddy was serving as a major with the US Army in Europe. All personal correspondence was censored, but a few weeks earlier he had hinted in a letter to Mama that she should “listen to the radio for something important happening on our anniversary.”
As June 5, 1944 dawned, Mama was alert and listening… but then nothing happened. The next day, however, news came that the allies were engaged in the largest amphibious assault in history. It turned out that the Normandy invasion had been planned for June 5, but stormy weather had forced a delay.
And with that, Mama understood what Daddy had tried to tell her: that their anniversary, June 5, would soon be known as “D-Day,” the first big day of a military operation. Only because the weather was so terrible did the invasion of Normandy happen a day later, June 6.
So I’m thinking of them today, eight decades later, proud that Daddy was fighting fascism and defending freedom in Europe as Mama nervously awaited news of some momentous event that would actually come the next day.
I was born 25 months later, after that terrible war against fascism was over. Thanks to Daddy and all the other heroes of that day, our “Boomer” generation grew up in a safer and better world.
I know for sure that Daddy would be horrified that so many Americans today are willingly flirting with home-grown fascism.