Today is the 70th Anniversary of the costly but vital D-Day Neptune- Overlord invasion in Normandy, France:
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Worth a pause to reflect on in light of the final stanza of the US National Anthem:
O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation.
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And, as well, the final verse in Lift Every Voice and Sing, the Afro-American unofficial national anthem:
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.
Let us reflect, on where we are now and the challenges we face today. (Including, challenges to the vision of freedom and its roots in the above, cf. here on.) END