It’s been 82 years since over 4,000 lives were lost in the first wave of attacks at Normandy. In all, over 70,000 troops were involved. From Omaha, to Utah, to Sword Beach, and all the paratroopers involved in the airborne attack. So many of them were barely 18 years of age. It is up to us to remember WHY they fought.

Yes, they fought for Freedom. But they also fought to free men from the yoke of governments who were dictating every aspect of their lives and taking away their religious freedoms as well.

So what, exactly, did they fight and die to protect?

We reach for familiar words — freedom, democracy, the American way of life. They are true words. But beneath them, older and more fundamental, lies a freedom we too often neglect to name first: religious liberty. The right of every human soul to seek God without a government’s hand on its throat.

The Founders did not place religious liberty at the head of the Bill of Rights by accident. Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which predated the Constitution and became part of the intellectual foundation of the First Amendment, rested on a radical conviction: that conscience belongs to God, not the state. The Declaration of Independence had already established the principle — that rights come not from governments but from the Creator, and that no government can legitimately take what it did not give.

The logic was simple and profound: If government can control conscience, no other freedom is secure. Religious liberty is not merely one freedom among many. It is the sentinel right. When it falls, every other liberty becomes vulnerable.

The men who landed at Normandy understood this. They knew instinctively that they were fighting against regimes that demanded absolute allegiance not merely from the body, but from the soul itself.

Nazi Germany sought to dominate every institution that stood above the state, including the church. Independent clergymen were silenced, imprisoned, or killed. Religious belief was tolerated only so long as it submitted to political authority. Across Europe, totalitarian governments claimed the authority to define truth, morality, and human worth itself.

D-Day was not merely a military operation. It was part of a broader struggle against governments that believed human dignity and conscience existed only by permission of the state.

Did our soldiers completely understand it as they were landing on the beach? Scaling the cliffs under heavy fire? Fighting their way across France and enduring insanely harsh winters? Not completely. But they KNEW that if they didn’t fight and prevail, all would be lost and Europe would fall to one of the most insane dictatorships in the world. 

Nazi Germany, led by the insanity of Hitler, was profoundly evil. So evil that those who stood trial at Nuremberg were, in several cases, baffled as to why their following Hitler’s rules were such a problem. That’s how much they absorbed his evil and thought it was good. 

As for our American soldiers and our allies, D-Day was the start of righting a very terrible wrong. At the cost of over 4,000 lives that first day, many more on the next waves, and countless more in the months to come. 

90% of the soldiers on the first boats to hit the beach didn't live to see the end of the day. Look at those faces. Some of them never made it to 18.

Never forget that they paid the ultimate price for our freedom. We live our lives the way we do because of them. pic.twitter.com/nVCkuLaVHs

— The Iceman (@the_iceman64) June 5, 2026

Medal of Honor recipient Walter Ehlers and his brother, Roland, landed at Omaha Beach as part of the second wave. 

The Ehlers brothers were several hundred yards apart when they approached Omaha Beach in their boats, facing machine-gun, mortar and rifle fire from Germans on the cliffs.

Walter Ehlers led his 12-man reconnaissance team onto the beach through water nearly over the men’s heads, and they made it to the heights through a breach in German minefields without a single casualty. The next day Walter learned that Roland was missing in action.

On June 9, Sergeant Ehlers single-handedly killed four German soldiers while on patrol amid the Normandy hedgerows, then destroyed three machine-gun nests and a mortar position, at one point leading a bayonet charge. The day after that, firing away while in the open, he enabled his men to withdraw when they were surrounded. He was shot in the back, but he managed to carry a wounded comrade to safety.

It wasn’t until June 14 that Walter found out his brother Roland was killed and never stepped foot on Omaha Beach. That same story happened to so many other soldiers over those days. 

Our soldiers spent years away from their families. Years of hardship and battling through towns, fields, the woods, and dealing with all kinds of weather conditions, lack of supplies and more. 

Again, they persevered in order to bring Freedom to all. And many lie in graves across Normandy, Luxembourg, Belgium, Italy, Africa, and across the Pacific. They persevered for Freedom while missing loved ones at home. 

It certainly got dusty in here!

In 1984 President Ronald Reagan eloquently spoke of our soldiers who fought and prevailed against unimaginable odds. 

“Here the allies stood & fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking. … These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.”#DDaypic.twitter.com/kcFUv9wllA

— Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) June 6, 2026

And then they fought again and again through Europe. 

Many, as is brilliantly portrayed in Band of Brothers, fully understood the freedoms they were fighting for when they camp upon the horrific concentration camps. 

It is imperative that we not only remember, but that we teach our children and grandchildren why D-Day was so important for the war, and for the world. 

82 years ago, D-Day turned the tide towards freedom. We honor, we remember, and we are so very thankful for men such as they. 

Feature Photo Credit: Rendering of Rangers scaling cliffs of Normandy on D-Day June 6, 1944 via X post, cropped and modified