How do we remember?

On June 6, 1944, the D-Day invasion took place. You can't encompass the sheer cost of lives in that bloody battle. People have described it as the biggest amphibious assault in military history, as the turning point of the war.

But while this battle took place in World War Two--God help us, we had to start numbering them--perhaps the most fitting words to describe the aftermath were written years before, in May of 1915, the poem "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae, which I partially quote here:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

How sad, still that so long after this terrifying day, the words to another song still ring sorrowfully true, the words to "No Man's Land" by Eric Bogle:

Well, I can't help but wonder, now, Willie McBride
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause?
Did you really believe that "this war would end wars"?

Well, the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame,
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain.
For Willie McBride...it all happened again....
and again, and again, and again, and again.

To all those who fought on that Day...we remember, and we'll try to do better by you.