America's Finest Hour? 

     December 7, 1941 - "a day that will live in infamy."  

     June 6, 1944 - "America's finest hour." 

     So says historian Alex Kershaw about the day, 80 years ago, when 156,000 men (73,000 Americans) from 12 nations stormed the beaches at Normandy, France. Within minutes, some 2,400 were killed and 1,200 wounded. Before the battle ended, 4,400 allied soldiers died, 2,500 of them Americans. 5,000 were wounded.

     The movie Saving Private Ryan portrayed Omaha Beach, where the fiercest action took place. 

     Thirty-seven men from a small community, Bedford, VA, in the Appalachians were there. Twenty were killed...the worst loss per capita in our country. 

The Allies needed a decisive victory, and the tide of World War II shifted. Lasting peace followed. Europeans stopped killing each other.  

     The boys of Bedford as they are known never expected to be in war. America was isolationist...until Pearl Harbor angered most everyone. Hitler declared war on the U.S. the next day. 

     In 1996 Congress agreed to build a D-Day monument at Bedford. Workers mixed Virginia soil with sand from Normandy. On June 6, 2001, President George Bush dedicated "a fitting memorial to D-Day...a place that was home to the men and women who helped liberate a continent." 

     Three months later, 9/11. And June 6, 1944 remains our finest hour. - not so fine for grieving families. After all, that was America's "greatest generation."