An important day

Sixty-three years ago today, on a windswept, rainy beach in Normandy, France, thousands of American soldiers gave, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, "the last full measure of devotion."

These men, children of the exuberant Roaring Twenties, then violently sobered by a Great Depression and a globe hurtling toward certain war, were charged with a simple, yet awesome task: Save the world.

Today, as we, the children and grandchildren of this Greatest Generation mark the anniversary of the supreme sacrifices made on D-Day, June 6, 1944, there are no parades in honor of the fallen; no headlines screaming victory; no moments of silence…

There is, however, the freedom inherent in the lives and in the citizenship of each American, those freedoms that the Greatest Generation fought-and died- to protect.