During this Morning Joe segment, Mike Barnicle, who grew up in a Gold Star house on a street where the flag flew every day, remembers his many trips to Normandy on this 80th anniversary of D-Day. And host Mika Brzezinski read from a Boston Globe column Mike wrote in 1994 to honor the fallen soldiers. “These are the heroes who all died young. They missed sunsets and baptisms. They went without 50 World Series and 50 New Year’s Eves. They never stood at the door anxiously waiting for a daughter’s first date to arrive or witnessed their kids’ junior proms and college graduations. They never saw men landing on the moon or a fax machine. They were not allowed to walk on a beach with the girls they loved or hold the hands of grandchildren who would have asked about their great crusade. In our increasingly selfish country where everything and nearly everyone is part of some special interest, where defining any enemy or current threat to live or moral values is as difficult as peering through the murky fog that envelops this French coast, it is stunning to realize that these 4,410 and millions of others sailed to certain danger with no thought of conquest or profit. They came because they were asked and because they were needed.”
Jun 06, 2024
