Wilfredo Lee / AP, file
World War II veteran Harold Terens, 100, holds a photo of himself during the war when he was 20-years-old, Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024, in Boca Raton, Fla. Terens will be honored by France as part of the country’s 80th anniversary celebration of D-Day. In addition, he will marry Jeanne Swerlin, 96, on June 8 at a chapel near the beaches where U.S. forces landed.
Thursday, June 6, 2024 | 2 a.m.
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Eighty years ago today, 150,000 allied soldiers — including 73,000 Americans — landed in Nazi-occupied France and stormed the beaches of Normandy. Their courage and bravery not only led to success on the field of battle that day, but also marked the beginning of the end of World War II, as the free world united and sacrificed to beat back authoritarian dictators.
The passage of time has ensured that the number of surviving WWII veterans has declined. After all, the brave men and women who helped defeat Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany and the rest of the Axis nations are now hovering around 100. As such, this may be the last significant D-Day anniversary that WWII veterans will be alive to participate in the commemoration events.
Tragically, the world these heroes helped create is at risk of passing from the earth right along with them.
“I believe that freedom and democracy are definitely under threat,” D-Day veteran Harold Terens, 100, told NBC News ahead of the 80th anniversary commemorations in France.
World War II veteran Harold Terens, 100, right, and Jeanne Swerlin, 96, pose for a photo, Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024, in Boca Raton, Fla. Terens will be honored by France as part of the country's 80th anniversary celebration of D-Day. In addition, the couple will be married on June 8 at a chapel near the beaches where U.S. forces landed.
He’s right.
Tragically, for the first time in the past 80 years, an authoritarian dictator has declared war on a sovereign European neighbor. Even if he is victorious, there is little reason to believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin will be satisfied with capturing Ukraine. Rather, he appears committed to restoring the entire Soviet Union and potentially expanding it. Perhaps most concerning, Putin is creating a global axis-like coalition of nations that includes China, Iran and North Korea; nations whose leaders each share Putin’s disdain for freedom and democracy and his love of imperial authority.
With his invasion of Ukraine, Putin is spitting on the legacy of the greatest generation and hoping a restive West will toss the gift purchased for us by those brave soldiers into the trash heap of history. Making matters worse, one of America’s major political parties is aiding Putin and his allies in their quest to tear down institutions of freedom and democracy, further insulting the legacy and sacrifice of America’s veterans.
Earlier this year, Republicans used funding for Ukraine’s fight against Putin as a political pawn, trading literal lives in Ukraine for political concessions from President Joe Biden. While GOP leaders claimed to be fighting for fiscal responsibility, a closer examination of the party’s actions shows a clear move toward authoritarianism.
Just last month, Republicans gathered for the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), and for the third year in a row, selected Budapest, Hungary, to host the event and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as the keynote speaker.
Orbán is a dictator who, upon taking office, shredded Hungary’s constitution, seized control of the federal court system and reconstituted the Soviet-era secret police force once known for torturing people who spoke against communism or in favor of Western values.
Despite this, convicted felon and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump hosted Orbán at Mar-a-Lago in March and described the Hungarian prime minister as “a great man” who is “proudly fighting on the front lines of the battle to rescue Western civilization.” Those statements are disturbingly similar to the praise he has lavished on Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un.
Trump’s words are disgraceful and should bring shame to him and anyone who supports him.
It is not dictators who are the heroes of Western civilization. It is the brave men who stormed the beaches of Normandy and Iwo Jima, and the heroic women who sacrificed every comfort while working tirelessly to turn the gears of wartime production who are the heroes fighting on the “front lines of the battle to rescue Western civilization.” And the heroes are also everyone who today runs to the ballot box to elect people who will defend democracy, not attack it.
Trump’s words spit in the face of every soldier who has ever worn the uniform. Which of course, comes as no surprise given that Trump has openly expressed his disdain for America’s men and women in uniform.
At a campaign rally in Iowa in 2016, he referred to Sen. John McCain, a veteran and POW, as a “loser” and said, “I like people who weren’t captured.”
In a statement to CNN last year, Trump’s own homeland security secretary and eventual chief of staff, John Kelly, confirmed Trump’s disdain for the military. He described Trump as a “person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ ”
Kelly went on to say that Trump is a “person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family — for all Gold Star families — on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.”
The graves Trump wouldn’t visit are the same graves of the same people we’re celebrating today.
Unlike 80 years ago, most Americans aren’t being asked to risk our lives in defense of the nation today. We’re not being asked to send loved ones away, ration our gas, save scraps of precious metals or forgo that new pair of shoes.
Instead, most Americans today are being asked to support funding for the war in Ukraine and to cast a ballot against the would-be dictator Trump.
It’s the least we can do and the least we should do in defense of our nation’s highest ideals.
As the last members of the generation who helped defeat the Nazis and the Axis celebrate their sacrifice 80 years ago, they should take comfort in the knowledge that the generations they fought to protect are also willing to sacrifice to preserve freedom, democracy and peace. We should all strive to measure up to that generation and carry its torch forward.
