Another chance to mark D-Day with those who lived through it

THEY ARE THE HEROES WHO MADE the ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms we enjoy today.

Many of them are part of the greatest generation — a legacy that is still being written.

World War II veterans traveled to Normandy today to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the decisive but deadly assault that led to the liberation of France and Western Europe from Nazi control.

On that single day, 4,414 Allied soldiers lost their lives, 2,501 of them Americans.

Keeping all that in mind, the D-Day anniversary always is a bittersweet occasion.

That’s more true than usual this year. As veterans of D-Day gather in Normandy once again, their numbers are down to a precious few. Veterans of the invasion are now centenarians or close to it.

The exact number of surviving D-Day veterans is unknown, but the U.S. Veterans Administration says less than 1% of the 16.4 million Americans who served in the war were still living at the end of 2023, and 131 are dying every day.

“The actuarial tables tell us that pretty soon there won’t be a generation,” Rob Citino, a senior historian at The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, told The Associated Press. “And I think this 80th is the last round year in which we will actually be able to celebrate in the presence, and with the wisdom of, the veteran generation that actually fought the war.”

It’s difficult to fathom the loss of these witnesses to history, including the events leading up the war, the brutal conflict itself and the Holocaust inflicted by Nazi Germany on Jews and others.

We are thankful that the survivors are continuing their efforts to share their stories. We have learned through painful experience that people forget all too easily. It’s imperative that we listen to these individuals, remember their stories and pass them on to generations born long after World War II concluded.

D-Day’s survivors are among the last ambassadors from the first half of the 20th century, an era when America at first rejected foreign entanglements but ultimately engaged.

The invasion itself — the slaughter, the horror, the heroics, the sacrifice — will soon take its place alongside Gettysburg or Saratoga as one of those long-ago battles that shaped who we are, but in ways we can’t really fathom.

Soldiers from many nations fought at Normandy — from Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand — as did resistance forces from nations still occupied by the Nazis — France, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Greece.

But the invasion was led by the United States, which had the advantages of wealth, industry, population and geographic distance.

The United States rescued freedom. And in the aftermath, the United States protected it and, through its example, spread its blessings across the globe.

The living memory of the individuals who fought and died may fade. But the 80th anniversary of D-Day is a good time to remember the lasting peace, prosperity and freedom that their sacrifice bought us, and that remains ours to keep or toss away.