This ain't one body's story, it's the story of us all...

"This ain't one body's story.
It's the story of us all.
We got it mouth-to-mouth.
You got to listen it and 'member.
'Cause what you hears today
You got to tell the birthed tomorrow"

Mad Max-Beyond Thunderdome


Because the media outlets chose to spend more time covering the alleged suicide attempt of Paris Jackson today, they completely missed the fact that this is the 69th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. I won't harp on the fact that dirt dishing public prefers to know everything there is to know about a troubled young lady because of who her father was, and most are likely unaware of the fact that their neighbor's daughter might be experiencing the same pain and could use a little empathy (okay, maybe just a little harping...). I will suggest you that  you should turn your ear away from the talking heads and toward that that really old guy in your neighborhood. 

You know him. Maybe you know his name. He's the one who sits on his porch and appears to just be watching the world go by because he is.  It's a world he helped to preserve, for better or worse. Strike up a conversation, ask about his service, and listen to what he has to say because he may have participated and perhaps even been wounded in this allied invasion 69 years ago.

Oh, I remember how it was with my Grandmother, (who was both a WAAC and a WAVE, btw. It wasn't all about the boys.) She would start of with "Well...." and we all knew that we were in for the long haul. Listening to this man for a while may feel like longest hour of your life because he had a post in Fort Dix, counting bed pans and packing cotton balls for the duration of the war. Listen anyway. He still supported those in harm's way, however seemingly insignificant the task. He may have typed up forms or filed paperwork for three years. Those forms and files made it possible for servicemen to get paid, those bedpans to be ordered, or perhaps drew up the proper documents for the remains of someone's family member to be sent home to them. I can't imagine that would have been an easy job.  Or, as a friend of mine did during the Viet Nam war, it was his task to blow taps over the returning caskets. That can't have been easy, either.

Mr. Neighbor probably didn't make the decisions. He may not have even chosen to serve, only responded to a draft notice. But he did. He served, he experienced, and he came home. Unfortunately, the lucky ones who came home are passing away in a world where, as I said, society seems more focused on the famous child of a famous man. The thing is, it's possible that he and his fellow soldiers, sailors, and airmen helped to preserve a France which still has a Paris to name that famous child and many more famous and ordinary children after.

No one can tell the stories if we don't know them.

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