I was sitting with Barrister Jerry at Willow last night, along with the usual suspects aligned in the usual places at the bar. I asked him if he had heard about the major data breech at the Office of Personnel Management, better known in these parts as OPM. For purposes of efficiency, they share their servers with the Department of the Interior. Persons unknown hacked into OPM and exfiltrated the personnel files of around four million current and former Federal employees. Jerry said the NCIS had called him up to warn him about his vulnerability.
“I don’t know whether they tried to contact me,” I said pensively. “I don’t answer my land line any more. It is always politicians asking for money.”
Jerry shook his head and asked Marvin behind the bar for an order of the gazpacho and two salmon tacos.
OPld Jim waved for another Budweiser. “You know what day it is tomorrow?” he asked, carefully wrapping the cord to his earbuds around his little MP3 player , like a sailor coiling his lines after casting off.
“Yep. June 6, the anniversary of The Longest Day at Normandy, seventy-one years ago. And the end of the Battle of Midway in 1942. If the Japanese had won at Midway, they would have eliminated American carrier-based airpower and established a new outer security perimeter for the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.”
“Sort of like what the Chinese are trying in the South China Sea, building all those artificial islands,” said Jim, slipping the music player into the pocket of his denim jacket he wears even in the summer to protect him from that irritating air conditioning vent above the apex of the Amen Corner at the bar.
“There is going to be trouble about that,” said Jon-without. “Maybe not now, but eventually.”
“No doubt. But imagine if we had failed in the Normandy landings. The war in Europe would have dragged on years longer. Hitler could have transferred his elite Panzer units back east and perhaps stopped the Red Army. He certainly would have murdered more people he didn’t like.”
“Ike apparently wrote down some remarks about failure in case the weather went wrong or the beach-heads could not be held. It was something like: “Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone. What a guy. We don’t have people like that any more.”
“I like Ike,” said Jon. “It was the largest amphibious invasion of all time, with over 160,000 troops in the landing force and another 195,700 Allied and merchant navy personnel in over 5,000 ships and landing craft.”
“Biggest amphibious operation since Grant crossed the Mississippi south of Vicksburg,” I said.
Jim looked pensive- he was a War Baby, after all, one of the rare ones on the Home Front born the year of the invasion. “The 6th of June provides the symbolic date in the struggle against the Nazis. So, on this peaceful moment in Arlington, remember what was given, and what was taken by those young people on the sea, on the beaches, and in the air.” We all lifted our glasses, and for that moment we honored the past and the courage of young people who saved the world.
I took a sip of vodka. Uncle Dick would have been airborne from his base in East Anglia in his B-17 Buzzin’ Betsy. He lost an engine on take off and was barely able to lurch into the air with his load of bombs, but he continued to the target anyway.
We talked about other things, and the difference between the wars we are fighting now and the ones we did then. But it is worth remembering what was given that day, and what those young people confronted afterwards in the hedgerows of France on the long walk to the Rhine that followed, don’t you think?
Copyright 2015 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303