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This year's onslaught of D-Day hype—a continuous barrage of World War II nostalgia stretching from Memorial Day weekend through George Bush's trip to Europe these next few days—has already exhausted all but the most diehard buffs. Newsmagazines splash gritty old photos of GIs from the Good War and marked-up invasion maps across their glossy pages. Historians from Martin Gilbert to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar have published books exalting soldierly valor. In various speeches George Bush links the siege of Normandy to the siege of Baghdad in what he portrays as one seamless American mission. Building on the mythmaking efforts of past presidents, and with the ready help of the media, Bush has spun a simple tale of American bravery in defense of democracy—of a golden moment when ordinary Yankee sons began the liberation of foreign peoples solely because they believed in freedom.

Obviously, the invasion of Normandy was a crucial event in American history, worthy of commemoration. But so are many of the events of World War II, and it's worth asking why V-E Day, for example, or V-J Day, or for that matter the death of Franklin Roosevelt doesn't serve as the focus of our national remembrance. Why does D-Day prompt Tom Brokaw to hustle into a helicopter and report to us for three nights from the skies above Omaha Beach?

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I've made the pilgrimage to the invasion beaches twice, but haven't had much of an urge to go to other battlefields. Perhaps the reason is that the place is a beach, and is thus part of the more permanent natural world, unlike an equally important site, such a Stalingrad.

I should add that there are many people who tour what's left of the trenches of the Great War's Western Front who have no urge to visit Normandie.

[ 04 June 2004: Message edited by: al-Qa'bong ]

If the D-Day landings had failed, WWII would have ended very differently, with incalculable consequences. Imagine how the history of the second half of the 20th century would have evolved if Western Europe had been liberated by the Red Army.

[ 04 June 2004: Message edited by: Oliver Cromwell ]

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I think it's a big deal because it's one of the biggest 'what-ifs?' of the last century.

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You might think that, and you're quite correct, although the invasion would have been delayed over a year had it failed, but do you think this is what Tom Brokaw and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar think?