Joanne Sisco

D-Day: 1944-2019

I had a post already prepared for today’s Thursday Doors, but since early this morning I’ve been watching the live special D-Day commemoration coverage on TV from Courseulle-sur-Mer where the Canadian Forces landed on Juno Beach 75 years ago today.

If you are British, American, or French, I suspect there is similar coverage on your networks related to the Allied Forces which landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944.

Having walked on that same beach only 6-7 weeks ago, I find myself deeply touched. For someone like me, so far away, to be so emotionally touched, I can’t begin to imagine the thoughts of the very elderly veterans on the various Normandy beaches today, or the citizens of Normandy themselves.

So on this day commemorating an event both horrifying and strategically important to the world we know today, I offer my own small wordless remembrance from Juno Beach.

Lest We Forget.

61 comments

  3. This is such a lovely tribute, Joanne. I am down in Florida, but near my home is the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, VA. I was hoping to capture some photos of it prior to leaving, but the weather did not cooperate.

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  4. Great post, Joanne! Some years ago, we visited the American Cemetery in Normandy overlooking the beaches and it was beyond words. Ten thousand crosses. I walked around with tears in my eyes. I have often said that everyone should have the opportunity to visit this place and understand how much was sacrificed and lost for all we have today. A great way to remember those who gave all.

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    • I know exactly what you mean and share the sentiment. Reading about the numbers of casualties is one thing, but staring at the evidence of it in cemetery after cemetery is overwhelming.

      We both openly cried. It was hard not to.

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  5. Hi Joanne,
    Thank you for taking the time to post this…and how especially meaningful that you had been there just a few weeks ago.
    It’s strange to think that 75 years have passed, and those men from the “Greatest Generation” are nearly all gone.
    I sometime wonder what, if anything, we have learned.
    Humans have such short memories.

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  9. The sculpture is wonderful, but it is sad that we still don’t seem to have learned that wars only lead to young men and women being killed. I don’t think there has been a time during my lifetime that there hasn’t been a conflict somewhere in the world…

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  12. Hi Joanne

    I’ve been watching the newsreels about D-Day and get choked up when I see and hear those brave men and women tell their stories. It’s so moving. I glad you were able to walk the beach at Courseulles-Sur-Mer. It’s amazing the feeling you get when walking on hallowed ground.

    Thank you for your post.

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    • I’m glad I’m not the only one who is reduced to tears by these ceremonies. Seeing those old men lined up in wheelchairs on the beach was my undoing … and 379 young people each carrying a pair of boots to symbolize each soldier who died on the beach during the initial assault. “Moving” doesn’t even begin to cover it 😢

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    • And young boys they were.

      Looking at those old men, each in their 90s, lined up in wheelchairs on the beach, it’s easy to forget they were once just young men handed an impossible task.

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