Today we remem­ber a day 75 years ago when prin­ci­ples were put before per­son­al choic­es, brav­ery was put forth to face the great­est of fears and sac­ri­fices were made that washed away in the tides of time. It was the day the great­est arma­da in his­to­ry was assem­bled. With 7,000 ships, 10,000 air­craft and over 156,000 souls, this force became one to com­bat a men­ace bent on glob­al dom­i­na­tion and ulti­mate destruc­tion. It was a few moments with­in an infin­i­ty where time stopped just long enough to allow right­eous­ness the oppor­tu­ni­ty to gain a foothold with­in an evil ide­al. Men fell and sank with­in the swal­low­ing waters gasp­ing and dying as a dark­ness in human­i­ty blan­ket­ed them with destruc­tion. And yet, these men kept fight­ing the tide, mov­ing for­ward past the fall­en, to give back to oth­ers the free­dom that had been stolen.

I will nev­er have the chance to meet those who per­ished on the Nor­mandy Beach­es in France on June 6, 1944. And I may nev­er meet any who fought their way through the chaos and sur­vived. But with these words, I can say thank you for what they gave me and the rest of the world. I hope we all take a moment to remem­ber what this day meant to so many oth­ers 75 years ago and what it rep­re­sents still today.