Over a decade ago now, Tom Brokaw published “The Greatest Generation”, his tribute to the dedication, sacrifice, and ultimate triumph of the men and women who struggled to survive the deprivations of the Great Depression and then to endure the crucible of a world at war.
June 6th was this past weekend, a day of remembrance, and a day of reverence for those who gave their all and for those who persevered through the hell that was “D” Day. Along the shores of Normandy between the landing zones of Utah and Omaha Beach are the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc. At 7am on that morning 71 years ago, 225 men of the 2nd Ranger Battalion stood looking straight up the 30 meter, 100 foot vertical rise they would need to climb. A climb which they made while withstanding a merciless hailstorm of machine gun and sniper fire before they could wrest their objective from an entrenched and determined enemy. They did, only to face a fierce and relentless counter attack. One hundred and thirty five of their brother Rangers died there, over half their original number, in order to secure a small but crucial strip of coastline and with it their place in history as members of the Greatest Generation.
That was then. That was their day. Today is our day. Today we face threats to our freedoms, our liberty, and to our very existence that are greater than any other generation has faced from the founding of our nation. Greater threats than those posed by the War of Independence, the Civil War, World Wars I and II and all the police actions combined are even now at our doorstep.
The point is this. Today we stand at the bottom of the cliff, looking straight up. The climb to the Convention of States will be long. It will be difficult. It may be filled with peril. But it is a climb that we will make ..... because we must ….. for all the generations that follow.
