D-day

71yrs ago today a huge number of very scared men (and a number of women) went into the most important battle of recent history.
These fathers, brothers, friends and sons travelled across the English channel to be met not by some officious customs officer but by lead, fire, pain, injury and death.
This day was the first day of a very long journey of pain, suffering and loss.
Many families were decimated by these events and all touched by it.
These soldiers of all allied and commonwealth nations, all religions and all cultures fought and died on that day and those that followed.
Christian, Hindu, Jew or Muslim it did not matter, they lived and died together as brothers fighting the same evil, fighting to give us, their children, and grand children a future of freedom, rights and justice.
Please think back to what it was like for them facing almost certain death by the most horrible ways imaginable. Reflect upon it. Allow yourself to feel a fraction of their fear, terror, pain and nothingness.
Their willingness to give up their own futures to ensure a good one for us.
Understand that they did this out of duty, out of morality but also most of all out of hope.
Do not sully their memory with hate. Do not let their memory be tarnished by the very things they fought for. Our freedoms, our rights, our future.
Do not allow others to steal our rights or tell us our fellow brothers, sisters, humans deserve theirs to be taken.
Those that use these memories to promote hate absolute disrespect the memory of those we should be most proud of.

I remember them, this and every day. I respect what they did and love them for it.

Jonesy.