NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans was home to Higgins Industries, the company that made the landing boats used extensively in World War II for amphibious landings.
It's the reason the National World War II Museum is here in the city.
And today people came in from all over the country for the 80th D-Day service.
Of the more than 16 million Americans who served in WWII, less than one percent are still alive. Last year, there were around 119,000 left. They are dying at a rate of 131 per day.
Thursday, 700 people came to the commemoration, and among them, there was a handful of D-Day veterans.
It was standing room only at the National World War II Museum for the 80th anniversary of D-Day. And stand and clap they did for the veterans who rolled in, in wheelchairs, who were in Normandy during, and right after the the largest seaborne invasion in history, June 6, 1944. They were thanked by Rabbi Scott Hoffman.
“Experts say that 10,000 Jews every week lost their lives until the allies arrived at the gates of those camps, meaning that the D-Day landing among Jewish lives alone, saved roughly 150,000 souls,” Rabbi Scott Hoffman of Shir Chadash Congregation, said in his speech.
Now, 80 years forward that's half, to three-quarters of a million descendants who would not be alive today without the bravery of teens, and young adults, who fought for something much bigger than themselves. One of those Jewish men who fought in Normandy is the late Dr. Hal Baumgarten, who went back to the Normandy cemetery in 1988 and was inspired to write three books.
“And I started to cry, and I looked up at my wife, and knelt over the graves, and I said these guys can't talk anymore. Nobody will ever know what they did, what their names are unless I speak about it,” Dr. Baumgarten, who passed away in 2016, said in a video documentary.
Generation Z is the age these men were back then. So, what does The Greatest Generation want to say to Gen Z?
“I want them to think about the history. They are not being taught history today, and that's very important. They are not going to understand until people like us start teaching them,” said WWII veteran, Daniel Robichaux, 96.
“Back in the war years, everybody was patriotic. Today it isn't that way, and I'm very sad to see that,” said WWII veteran, Windsor Van Allan, 97.
“They should learn to be good citizens. Our good citizens will look after each other, and right now we're not at that point,” said WWII veteran Norris Morvant, 100.
“When the Japanese attacked, that unified everybody. The country is in such turmoil right now,” added Robichaux.
“America is one of the best in the world to be living,” said Morvant.
And on a personal note, sometimes a story assignment can tug at you personally, and emotionally. In the ceremony, they asked for all the children of WWII veterans to raise their hands. And when I did, I realized that I have the freedom, and privilege to bring stories like this to you today because my father was one of the fortunate to come home.
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