I’ve come to realize something about America today. We are a nation that has lost its sight.

A nation that is so busy living for temporal things that we “don’t have time” to look back on the past. We are consumed with making sure our lives are as comfortable as possible, but we never think to consider the discomfort with which our nation has been built and preserved for all these years.

America is not standing today because the generations before us lived in comfort. No, America stands today because they lived lives of sacrifice.

We are rapidly approaching a season filled with commemorations, starting with Memorial Day and continuing right on through to Veterans Day. Many of us would consider ourselves to be patriotic individuals, but I wonder how many of us find that our hearts are devoid of the gratitude that should be flowing out of us on these days.

Are we so intoxicated with the freedoms we enjoy today that we forget to show gratitude to the ones who bought it for us? Have we become so apathetic that we no longer consider it our greatest honor and duty to remember the price paid with blood for our freedom? Have we lost sight of the horrors that so many endured so we could live in peace?

I would argue that we have.

All you have to do is look around, and you would see this to be true. The generations that we are part of have no idea why we commemorate any of the days we do. We are unwilling to do something as simple as participate in a ceremony or commemoration to honor those who paid the cost for our liberty.

We find it too difficult to get up on Memorial Day, make ourselves look presentable, and attend a service to honor and remember our fallen.

We don’t ever approach a WWII veteran and thank them for their service, because we are so busy scrolling through Instagram that we don’t even see them.

It’s too much of a bother for us to be proactive and encourage those that we know to take part in commemorations. Most of the time it would be hypocritical of us to do so any way, because we ourselves won’t participate.

We’re too lazy to spend any amount of time learning about the price freedom requires. It takes too much effort to actually be serious minded on any level.

Sadly, I look around at my generation and realize that we are not worthy of the freedom that has been purchased for us with the blood of those who came before us.

It has been the purpose of this blog to stir the embers of patriotism that are growing dim in the hearts of my fellow Americans. That won’t ever change so long as I have anything to say about it. It was with this intent that I set out on a mission to honor our D-Day heroes this year.

What I have found is that few in my generation, or the generations directly before me, realize the magnitude with which those courageous men impacted our lives today. You see, it was so much more than a battle on a forgotten field of history. No, it was the liberation of a hundred generations yet to come. It was the rendezvous between a courageous band of men and the legends they would leave those beaches as. It was a crusade of heroes standing between the free world and the powers of unfathomed darkness.

But many today have lost sight of why it is so important to remember them. With this in mind, I submit to you a set of statistics that I hope will leave your heart aching with a passion to honor their heroism today more than ever before.

According to the National World War Two Museum, 16 million Americans served during WWII. Of that number, roughly 119,000 still remain with us today. A smaller number yet are those who served in the Normandy landings.

Statistics show that 131 WWII veterans die every day in America. History is slipping from us with every one of these veterans that pass away.

With the given statistics on WWII veteran deaths in America, in ten years all we will have left of the Greatest Generation is the heritage and legacy they left us. There will be no one to tell us what it was like storming the Normandy beaches. No one to explain why they endured the horrors they did. No one to tell us of those who fell in defense of our freedom, in the bloodiest conflict the world has ever known.

As we approach the 80th anniversary of D-day, we are left with the sorrowful and humbling realization that this is most likely the final major anniversary of the invasion that will be graced with the presence of those who witnessed it.

Our generation has stopped caring about the hundreds, yea even thousands, of young men who were blown apart and decapitated on the beaches of Normandy. We’ve betrayed the memory of those who watched their comrades — their countrymen, their brothers, their friends — be slaughtered around them.

My appeal to you is that we rise up and carry the torch that is being passed to us. As they fade into the mist of history’s greatest hour, we must resolve to carry their legacy into the future.

Stand up and catch the torch. Take part in commemorations of our heroes every chance you get! History pleads with us to not become part of the ungrateful masses that are the epitome of our generation.

How will you respond?

A. M. Watson

Hebrews 13:8