78 years ago today the armed forces of the United States, Great Britain, and Canada launched the largest amphibious invasion in world history.
The ensuing battle changed the tide of World War 2 and would mark the beginning of the end of Adolf Hitler’s sadistic Third Reich.
June 6, 1944: D-Day.
President Roosevelt announced the invasion on radio as American forces rushed towards the beaches.
Listen above to his prayer for national victory over Nazi Germany.
“Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.
Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.
They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.
They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men’s souls will be shaken with the violences of war.
For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.
Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.
And for us at home — fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas — whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them–help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.
Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.
Give us strength, too — strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.
And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.
And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.
With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.
Thy will be done, Almighty God.
Amen.”
I’d rather listen to President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s famous speech on the military-industrial complex. It is much more relevant to our world today.
We all know Ike’s military career and his involvement in World War 2. If not, google it, it is fascinating. At the end of his presidency he warned America that, “Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex… the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” We have witnessed that “misplaced power” in the unnecessary build-up of our military and slew of foreign engagements that have taken place in the SIX DECADES since he spoke these words. Have no doubt, Ike was a proponent of diplomacy.
The US military budget was $801 BILLION in 2021. That’s more than the next 9 countries COMBINED, including China, Russia, France, Germany, UK… China was second in military expenditures with $293 billion. The American military-industrial complex is real, and has stripped it’s citizens of trillions of tax dollars on unnecessary military bloat and useless foreign wars. This is money that could have been used for health care, education, social programs… or even just left in the pockets of American taxpayers! It is criminal that we have allowed such wasteful spending.
To Build Back Better Billy,
It’s not the government’s job to feed us, nor to pay our healthcare or drunken college parties.
The government is supposed to protect the country from illegal invasions, put criminals in jail and see that bridges are maintained and potholes fixed. And not stand in the way of businesses creating jobs.
Jesus did not say it was Caesar’s job to take care of widows and orphans, to feed the hungry or heal the sick, but “YOURS” and mine, each one helping a neighbor.
He also said if someone will not work he shall not eat. He did not say if you want something smash windows and steal it.
The government is not supposed to be your Mommy and Daddy and baby you from cradle to grave. A democrat once said:
“ And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”
It doesn’t sound like today’s Democrats.
As to weapons of war he said even though costly “ We dare not tempt them (other countries) with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.”
Sadly, Biden is a pathetic, demented, puppet of a man, the laughing stock of the world, who is loudly proclaiming to the world America’s weakness.
Or maybe listen to the Chance for Peace speech, also known as the Cross of Iron speech, given in 1953. There he warned of the burdens of arms races among countries:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”
We have allowed the military industrial complex to pilfer our tax dollars, at the cost of schools, hospitals, and basic infrastructure. From the “threat” of communism to the the “threat” of terrorism, propaganda has convinced generations of Americans that they must do without nice things in their communities in order to feed the military machine. We have allowed the hungry to go unfed, the cold to stay unclothed, the homeless to live on the streets. In all those years of spending on military might, we could have created a utopian society where not a single person went without.