"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." — George Santayana
This is D-Day plus 70 years. If you have no concept of what that means, shame on you. Go find out. Or if you don't want to, here's the short version: June 6, 1944, was the day 150,000 American and Allied troops landed in Normandy, a province of France, to begin the liberation of Europe from Adolph Hitler's war machine through a western front.
Old friend David Whitley ponders the questions of war and what-if, the latter as it relates to five minor-league and semi-pro baseball players who died on the Day of Days.
They were a footnote to the 2,500 U.S. soldiers, sailors and airmen whose lives were lost that day.
Whitley, writing for The Orlando Sentinel, pays homage to Forrest "Lefty" Brewer. A pitcher, Brewer was offered a contract by the Washington Senators for the 1941 season. Brewer, Whitley notes, already had a contract — he had joined the Army.
To remember American war dead on Memorial Day, Sporting News provided a gallery of U.S. athletes who made the supreme sacrifice in every conflict since World War I.
There were more; many more.
Take time to check Baseball's Greatest Sacrifice, a website with 520 names of baseball players who died either in combat, in military service or because of wounds in their duty.
This is D-Day, 70 years after parachutes popped or landing craft gates dropped. Whether they were inland; on beaches code named Omaha or Utah; in the English Channel or the sky about France, we must remember the men who fought, especially those who died, in the first assault on Fortress Europe.