Supplies arrives at a Normandy, France, beachhead with small craft lined up from supply ships on the horizon in June 1944. At right is a German 77-mm gun, captured intact during the June 6 Allied D-Day invasion.
But the liberal postwar order it ushered in remains ours to embrace or reject. It is one in which nations with different histories and languages but a common reverence for liberty have joined together to protect each other from forces that would divide them. It is a world that, when living out its ideals, promotes human rights and dignity and which understands that cooperation, communication and interdependence can enhance humanity and diminish the chance of war.
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, Greece. It was an imperfect champion. It obsessed on race and oppressed its nonwhite citizens, especially its African American descendants of slaves. In the name of peacekeeping and anti-communism, it blocked the legitimate aspirations of freedom-seeking people who wanted the same blessings that Americans enjoyed.
opinion From the press that promotes Trump race hatred