The Longest Day

I wish that I could take students who despise and hate America to Normandy to walk the streets with young people who, with a smile, will say, “I love America, thank you.”

EXCERPT:

For the second straight year, in conjunction with the Young America’s Foundation (YAF.org), I will be taking 25 campus conservative student leaders to Normandy. I recall last year’s trip and the emotional impact it had on these students, especially when they got to see and shake hands with men who had hit those beaches and drop zones, as well as scaled the sheer cliffs of Pointe du Hoc. They stood there near the place where President Ronald Reagan gave his “Boys of Pointe du Hoc” speech, and participants reenacted it. They got an opportunity to touch history, legacy, and experience the men who were members of our “Greatest Generation,” as Tom Brokaw would name them. When those students set foot on Omaha beach, walking upon that hallowed ground in Dog Sector, where the Rangers and 29th Infantry Division were brutally savaged by German machine gun and mortar fire, there was not a dry eye. The students had the humble honor of laying a wreath at the American cemetery that overlooks Omaha Beach, again, not a dry eye.

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This article first appeared at TownHall.com