Some observations on D-Day's 75th anniversary

My father, father-in-law and uncle fought in World War II. I don't remember if any of them were involved in D-Day, 75 years ago. Neither do I recall thanking any of them for their service just as I'm at a loss wondering what any of them would think of the world they fought to protect from Nazi totalitarianism. I suspect they might be severely disheartened by the way we've plundered and dishonored the legacy they left us. My suspicions have been partially shaped by my own experiences and partially formed by a number of the books I've read over the years and the values implicit and explicit in both.

I grew up during the golden years immediately following WWII. Many of the "family values" at the time derived from many sacrifices adults made so children could have a better life. Education was valued both for its own sake, to be an educated person was to be cultured, and as a means to "get ahead." Many of those who survived The War took advantage of provisions of the G.I. Bill to get a college degree and/or loans to buy a house in the suburbs. The American Dream was alive and well for many, but not all, citizens.

The details elude me, but I know after my father returned from active duty we lived in Georgia for a short while. I have a sibling who was born there. Returning to Massachusetts, we lived in Boston for several years and then in one of its suburbs for 5 or 6 years, and then back to Boston where the schools were better and it was a shorter commute to my father's employment.

Since those days, much water has flowed under the proverbial bridge and over the dam. Never once have any of us stepped in the same river, and yet, here some of us are, 75 years after D-Day, with a disheartening sense of deja vu. There are growing reports reports of autocracy and rampant oligarchy arising in many "democracies," including our own. The internet has turned us into a tower of Babel and serves as a source of never-ending disinformation. We have become a culture based on transactions rather than relations. If you think I'm being too harsh, please consider the following books, each of which, plus others, has foretold a number of the truly existential issues we're facing today:

• Unsettling America ~ Wendell Berry © 1977
• The End of Nature ~ Bill McKibben first published 1989
• Dark Times Ahead ~ Jane Jacobs © 2004
• The Long Emergency ~James Howard Kunstler © 2005

Within a generation or two of D-Day, these titles and other publications have presented us with a growing number of Inconvenient Truths. Too many of us have done our best to ignore them all. We consistently elect politicians and appoint judges who serve corporate persons more than real ones. We fail to heed the observations of indigenous people, such as this:

When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money.

On this day, 75 years after D-Day, I can't help but wonder how badly we have failed to produce the kind of world we and our allies were fighting for,  with many losing their lives in the battle. If the best time to make the world safe for democracy (WWI) was slightly more than 100 years ago, then the second best time is today. Shall we? We could follow the lead of a teenage girl  named Thunberg, and read her book as an antidote to those listed above. I'm pretty sure my father would approve [and the Better Half says to include my father-in-law with that].

Now, this is where we usually share a poem. Today we learned that the Allies used lines from a poem to alert the French that it was time to begin sabotaging rail lines. Please follow the link in this story for today's poem.

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