Yesterday at work, when I was writing “Thursday, June 6, 2024” on the board for my students, I instantly recognized the significance of the date. As an American soldier and combat veteran, it is one of those dates in history that I and so many others should and do remember: D-Day.
One of those dates when your imagination takes you everywhere, wondering what those servicemen who landed on Omaha Beach experience on their mission to save the world. The determination of Allied forces to bring an end to a crude and merciless war that shamelessly claimed the lives of so many innocents must never be forgotten.
As the day continued, I kept receiving calls and text messages about a flag raising outside the Delaware County courthouse in Media. I assumed it was in honor of D-Day. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Indeed, there was a flag raising—but it was not Old Glory. Instead, a Pride flag was raised to commemorate LGBTQ+ Pride Month.
Why on June 6th and not on the official start date of June 1st?
Why ignore the memory of our fearless heroes?
Surely, Delaware County leadership understands that we all owe a great deal to their sacrifice.
Surely Delaware County leadership knows we have treasured veterans still with us who could have been asked to speak.
Does their inclusion count?
Whether it was due to incompetence or an intentional ideological snub, it raises fundamental questions about the competency of our county leadership.
Given the universal efforts by heads of state – including the President of the United States – to honor this incredibly special 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, I find it unconscionable that our County Council simply forgot what day it was. I do not want to believe it, but I cannot help but think that this was another attempt by our ideological and out of the mainstream County government to divide and push their ideology instead of commonsense unity.
Would it have really hurt to give all of us Americans and Veterans one day in June? Why not put together something special in honor of D-Day? Honoring the heroes who made the landings in Normandy takes nothing away from our LGBTQ+ community.
June is big enough to honor both communities. Leaders should be smart enough to understand that.
Whether or not County Council heeds my call for honoring our Greatest Generation and what they did on June 6, 1944, let all of us do it anyway.
Delco – join the rest of the nation and the world in remembering and acknowledging the importance of D-Day and of treating our heroes right.
