Above a cliff of silent reminders, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Wednesday evoked the image of fallen warriors to mark the 63rd anniversary of the Normandy D-Day landings that turned the tide of World War II. The bloody beach assault on June 6, 1944, "unfolded as if it were a lifetime" for the young men who braved German guns, Gates said, looking out upon a vast field of white grave markers on a rainy, chilly day. Gates and the new French defense minister attended the anniversary ceremony and dedication Wednesday of a visitor's center at the Normandy American Cemetery, the burial ground for 9,387 war dead, most of whom lost their lives in the amphibious assault and subsequent operations.

We should all stop and reflect a moment on the experiences that the men who were there went through. Many of the young men who stormed that beach were not even eighteen years old. Some of them might not have been fully prepared for the battle which they joined that day. Nearly ten thousand American troops lost their lives that day, in one of the greatest battles in human history. Those men are the reason that the Allies were later able to win the War. If you know anybody that served during WWII or was there at Normandy, France on that day 63 years ago, let them know that they are not forgotten and America is still grateful for their sacrifice of blood, sweat, and tears.

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