06/07/2026
Today marks 82 years since D-Day.
For me, this day is not just history from a book.
I think about a man I knew growing up. He was a young, first-generation American from a family of Hungarian immigrant farmers. He was about 5'5", and he fought through North Africa, Italy, D-Day, the hedgerows of France, and on through Germany.
On June 6, 1944, he was a Browning .50 caliber machine gunner.
That weapon alone was roughly 84 pounds — a hard thing for any man to carry, much less a young man his size coming off a landing craft under fire.
He told me that after their landing craft was hit, the weight of that gun pulled him under. He walked underwater toward the beach with it, and when he came up, he realized he was the only survivor from his craft.
He made his position, gathered ammunition, and began suppressive fire to support the men coming behind him. Others eventually joined him, bringing more ammunition and barrels as he kept that gun running.
He did not tell me much more about that day.
Years later, before I deployed to the First Gulf War as a Marine, he talked to me because he knew I was also a .50 gunner — mine on Huey helicopters. What he wanted me to understand was not just the weapon, but the trust a gunner has to have in it, and the responsibility that comes with it.
That conversation stayed with me.
Today, I remember him. I remember the men who made it home and carried the weight quietly. I remember the ones who never made it home at all.
D-Day was not just a date. It was young men doing impossible things because the world needed them to.
May we never forget them.
— Marc
A Veteran’s Pool Company
