Ken Dec

If the mean age is 26 and the youngest soldiers had to be 18, the age of the soldiers landing on Normandy was between 18 and 34, born between 1910 and 1926. This group survived the Flu Pandemic and the Great Depression and maybe if they were lucky WWII. What did these men believe that made them risk everything? It had to be love. Only love could move a man in this way. Love of what? Love of country? No, that's too simple. Love of home. Love of a shady tree in summer, short sleeves and a beer. Love of a ballgame, a radio, and a porch. Love of the smell of a fresh cut field. Love of hedgerows and cart roads and dirt roads. Love of the sidewalks of a city where you could walk and think at any hour in safety. Love of the moment you picked up your lunch box and realized you have just enough time to look at your child in her cradle and to kiss your wife who has been up all night before walking to the steel mill and working the open hearth. Love of walking a woods' line and watching your grandfather take his last deer. Love of sitting in a classroom that moment in your senior year that you realized a teacher is not someone to fear. These are some of things that these men loved and died for; these are some of the things that aren't here anymore.