Roger Marsh: Hello, and welcome to a special edition of Family Talk with Dr. James Dobson, featuring our former co-host Luanne Crane and our former audio engineer, Steve Reiter. I'm Roger Marsh and today we are airing part two of a special program in honor of D-Day, that pivotal day when allied troops stormed the French beaches at Normandy and changed the tide of the war. Yesterday we heard stories from Dr and Shirley Dobson's trip to Normandy and the Memorial to the fallen soldiers there. It was a touching tribute. And if you missed any part of that broadcast, I urge you to go online to drjamesdobson.org, to hear all the details.
Now, today we'll hear more from the people who were there and the people who remember them. On June 6th 1944, over 150,000 men and women changed history. And we honor them now on this edition of Family Talk.
Dr. James Dobson: Steve, we mentioned last time that we had an absolutely wonderful tour guide who walked us through the cemetery at Omaha Beach. And he told so many stories and one of them is about a woman named Peggy Harris. And we have his depiction of her experience. Shall we let our listeners hear?
Steve Reiter: Doctor, it was by far my favorite story that he had told.
LuAnne Crane: Here now is Dwight Anderson.
Dwight Anderson: So you can see the headstone here. You can see there the guy's name is Billy D. Harris. You can see he was a first Lieutenant. You can see he was a fighter pilot. He flew P-15s. And you can see on this headstone that he enlisted in Oklahoma, and that he was killed on the 17th of July 44. But what makes his headstone special for me, is the fact that Billy here gets more flowers than anybody in the cemetery.
In fact, there're 14 days out of the year that Billy gets bouquets of flowers delivered, and we come out here and we place them here. And when we place the flowers here at a headstone, we take sand from Omaha Beach and we rub it into the engraving, so it gives it a gold effect. It stands out nice, and we make a photo of that. And then that is sent back to the next of kin.
Well, Billy, as I said, gets more flowers than anybody in this cemetery. So why is that? You see, what we can't see from looking at the headstone is that Billy was 22 years old and that on the 22nd of September, in fact he just got flowers here recently. On the 22nd of September 1943, he married a young girl named Peggy. She was 20 years old and they got married in Altus, Oklahoma, where he was taking his pilot's training at that time. Well, they only had a short time together and he had to report for duty and was off to the war. Peggy moved back to a little town called Vernon, Texas, where she lives to this day.
Now on the 17th of July, the story is when he was shot down on the 17th of July, the aircraft wasn't really damaged per se, but a round came in through the cockpit. As he was strafing German positions, a round came in through the cockpit, mortally wounding him. But apparently he had enough presence of mind to realize he was going to crash into a French village. And he managed to jettison the fuel and he narrowly missed hitting a French village. Well, one of the Frenchmen ran out there, opened the cockpit, saw he was dying. There was nothing he could do for him. Heard some German motorcycles coming in. He had to run away. So because he was shot down behind enemy lines, he was reported as missing in action to Peggy.
Well, the French recovered his body. They gave him a proper funeral in the little village church. And they buried him in the village church yard. Later, the area was liberated by the Canadians and they went to the Canadians and they said, "Gee, we got one of your pilots here." I don't know why the confusion, but the Canadians apparently couldn't readily identify him, but they took the French word for it. And they disinterred him and buried him with some Canadians, in the Canadian cemetery.
Well, now several years have gone by, it's after the war. And they probably got the aircraft, they got the aircraft identification number and they started connecting the dots and they said, "Wait a minute, this guy's not Canadian. He's American. In fact, he's Billy Harris." So they had now attempted to notify Peggy again. As I told you, Peggy had moved and they couldn't find her and they had no other address. So they gave up and Billy became what we call an administrative burial.
Now the French people, the wonderful French people in that village, they never gave up. And they regarded him as a hero and they wanted to know more about him. And they started doing research. And as you can well imagine what the language differences and what do you write and all of that, it's not like you nowadays, you can go online and Google and get all this stuff in a few minutes. But they kept researching and they never gave up.
And finally, in 2005, 61 years later, they found Peggy. She comes over every year. People in the French village, they host her. Of course her money's no good there and they treat her like a queen. And they bring her by the cemetery, she was here for Memorial Day and every other day after that, up through the 6th of June. And it was on the 5th of June, I was out here and I was starting to tell Billy's story to a group of Marines. And lo and behold, just as I was about to tell the story, I looked and there was Peggy coming up the sidewalk. So I stopped and I said, "Guys, I want to introduce you to somebody really, really special." And I said, Please, please, Peggy, come here. I want to introduce you to all these good looking young Marines." And so she came over and we joked a little bit and I said introduced her.
And I said, "Peggy, I was just starting to tell them Billy's story. But because you can tell it much better than I can, why don't you tell the story?" So she went ahead and told the story. And young Marines, of course, some of them very moved. And one of them he said, "Ma'am, I don't mean to be rude or anything like that," but he said, "Your name is still Mrs. Harris? Does that mean that you'd never remarried? You never had your own family?" And she said, "That's true. I never did." But she said, "It's very simple." She said, "Billy here, he loved me and he was married to me until the day he died. And I love him and I'll be married to him until the day I die." And that's why Billy gets more flowers than anybody in the cemetery.
Dr. James Dobson: My goodness, that is a powerful story. Wouldn't it be incredible if Peggy were listening to us today. I would like to say to her, "Thank you, dear lady."
LuAnne Crane: Yes.
Dr. James Dobson: For waiting all those years for Billy, remaining faithful to him, you obviously loved him with all your heart. And obviously he loved you. And I want to say to all the husbands and wives out there who have loved ones on the foreign field and are in harm's way, that we appreciate the sacrifices that you make, you and your children. And we pray that God will reunite you in his good time. And we are appreciative. We just passed Memorial Day, but it's always the right day to express appreciation to our men and women who are putting their lives in danger, that we might have freedom.
Dr. James Dobson: One of our tour guides, his name is Geert Van Dem Bogaert shared with us and I think it is self-explanatory.
Geert Van Dem Bogaert: Ladies and gentlemen, we found out what happened during those first 12 hours of the longest day. Those paratroopers would drop behind enemy lines after midnight, 1:00 in the morning. And had the first troops thing came ashore here at Omaha Beach at 6:30 in the morning. But as I said, for most civilians the news would arrive later. For most civilians in occupied Europe. It would arrive later, it would arrive in the afternoon of June 6th at about 1:30 in the afternoon. And that's because the only reliable source of information that these civilians had was the BBC. Because everything else was controlled by the Germans and it was propaganda. So if you wanted some more reliable information, you had to listen to the BBC.
But the only problem there obviously, strictly forbidden to listen to the BBC. But a lot of people took that risk. And one family did so as well. It was family of four father, mother, and two daughters. And they were sitting around an old radio set tuned into the BBC. They closed the windows and curtains and neighbors weren't there, house was empty. Now they couldn't turn the volume up too much. So when you gather around here, I didn't bring a radio obviously, but what I did bring is a recording of what that and thousands of other families heard on the afternoon of June 6th on the BBC.
Speaker 7: This is the BBC home service D-Day has come. Early this morning the allies began the assault on the Northwestern face of Hitler's European portrait. The first official news came just after half past nine, when two Supreme headquarters of the Allied Expedition Force issued communicate number one. This said, "Under the command of General Eisenhower, allied Naval Forces supported by strong air forces began landing allied armies this morning on the Northern coast of France."
Geert Van Dem Bogaert: They had first official news of the D-Day landings. You can imagine the atmosphere in the room changed slightly from fear and apprehension. There was obviously some joy, there was some tears. And for the oldest daughter in the family who was 15, that news meant to her it was simple that good was going to win over evil. Now, obviously she didn't know any of these men, but she was thinking of them. And we know it because she kept the diary and her name was Anne Frank. And she wrote in that diary on June 6th 1944, that she believed that good was going to win over evil.
Now, obviously the man that we talked about, he probably had no idea that he gave that little girl one of the last moments of joy in her existence, according to her diary. Because a few months later she was arrested and deported to a concentration camp where she died in March of 1945. Those soldiers didn't realize that they were fighting maybe for this girl and that this girl didn't know them. It's like us, 99% of the people who come here don't know the people in the cemetery. There's no connection, but what they did here changed the course of world history. So it changed our lives as much as it did theirs. And that's why I always like to thank people for coming to this cemetery and remembering their own history.
Dr. James Dobson: Well, that's what we're trying to do today. And it's the reason that we have devoted these days to the story of D-Day. The story of Normandy and the story of the defeat of Nazi Germany.
President Reagan went there for the 40th anniversary to the site of the Normandy battle, actually at what is known as Pointe du Hoc. And he gave one of the most memorable speeches ever given by an American president and makes me wish that he were here now. And we're going to play an edited version. And we should also add that there were many veterans there on Pointe du Hoc, who were actually involved in the D-Day landings.
President Reagan: We're here to mark that day in history, when the allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to Liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen. Jews cried out in the camps. Millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved and the world prayed for its rescue. Here in Normandy, the rescue began. Here the allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking, unparalleled in human history.
We stand on a lonely wind swept point on the Northern shore of France. The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men. And the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire in the roar of cannon. At Dawn on the morning of the 6th of June 1944, 225 rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion, to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns.
The allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the allied advance. The rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with the machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a ranger would grab another and begin his climb again.
Soon one by one, the rangers pulled themselves over the top and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. 225 came here, after two days of fighting only 90 could still bear arms. And behind me is a Memorial that symbolizes the ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there. 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. And these are the heroes who helped end a war.
You were young the day you took these cliffs. Some of you were hardly more than boys with the deepest joys of life before you, yet you risked everything here. Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you and somehow we know the answer.
It was faith and belief. It was loyalty and love. The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right. Faith, that they fought for all humanity. Faith, that a just God would grant the mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge and pray God, we have not lost it. That there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for. And democracy is worth dying for because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved Liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.
The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They felt in their hearts though they couldn't know that in Georgia, they were filling the churches at 4:00 AM. In Kansas, they were kneeling on their porches and praying. And in Philadelphia, they were ringing the Liberty Bell.
Something else helped the men of D-Day, the rock hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here. That God was an ally in this great cause. And so the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer, he told them, "Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask his blessing in what we are about to do."
Also, that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua. "I will not fail the nor forsake thee." These are the things that impelled them. These are the things that shaped the unity of the allies. Today, as 40 years ago, our armies are here for only one purpose to protect and defend democracy. The only territories we hold are memorials like this one and graveyards where our heroes rest.
Here in this place, where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their value and born by their memory. Let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.
Dr. James Dobson: Well, that was President Ronald Reagan on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the D-Day landings. This was the first time in world history that the forces of an invading Army and Navy and the military might was a raid, not for the purpose of conquering and subjugating people who lost in that conflict, but for the purpose of liberating.
Steve Reiter: Yeah.
Dr. James Dobson: And that's what they did. And as soon as the war was over, we had what's called a Marshall Plan. We began giving money, $50 million to Germany that had brought this Holocaust on the world. Our enemies complain about our not being perfect. What we did to the Native Americans. What we did to the Mexicans, all the things that we've done wrong. But look back at D-Day, this is a time when we did it right.
Steve Reiter: And I've never been more proud to be an American than when we were there.
Dr. James Dobson: In fact, as Steve, I know you were deeply touched by this. But you recently took a trip to your hometown in Wisconsin.
Steve Reiter: Yep.
Dr. James Dobson: To see your family. And you had your two children with you. And then on the way there you came across something that you did not know was there.
Steve Reiter: No. We pulled off in Greenwood, Nebraska to get gas. It was late at night and Matthew, my six year old and I went out for a little walk with the dog. And next to the gas station was a World War II Museum. And Matthew asked me, "Daddy, what's that?" I said, "Well, it's a World War II museum." "What's World War II?" And so I explained to him what World War II was about. And he asked me, "Well, were there tanks? And were there guns?" "Yeah, there were tanks and guns." "Were there bad guys?" "Yeah, buddy. There were some really, really bad guys." "Did they want to kill lots of people?" And I said, "Yeah, buddy, they did because they wanted to conquer the world. They wanted to rule all of the free world." And I explained this to him in six year old terms. And it's a conscious decision on my part to start to teach him about the importance of our country's history and the sacrifices that have been made for our freedoms.
Dr. James Dobson: And every parent listening to us out there has an obligation to tell-
Steve Reiter: Yeah.
Dr. James Dobson: ... that story to the next generation.
Steve Reiter: Yeah.
Dr. James Dobson: Because it can be lost. Courage and conviction and strength on that day.
Luanne Crane: We leave you today with a final thought from Dr. Dobson's visit to the shores of Normandy. Steve, why don't you set that up for us?
Steve Reiter: Absolutely. Dwight Anderson our tour guide for the day, he had pulled us aside Doctor and given us his final thoughts. And then immediately after that, he set you and your daughter Danae up to receive one of the flags that was being taken down. And you and Danae were a part of the flag folding ceremony at the end. And so we'll hear the closing thoughts as well as taps that was being played as you Danae received that flag.
Dr. James Dobson: You can hear it fluttering as it comes down in the wind.
Steve Reiter: Yeah. It was emotional.
Dr. James Dobson: It was a very emotional moment.
Dwight Anderson: You've had a very full day here today, sir. And I tell people often that you cannot come to the Normandy American cemetery and spend the day like you have as we have today and leave here and not feel changed in some way. I want to leave you with a couple questions. First question is we have to ask ourselves, what would the world look like if all of these men, these soldiers here had lived today? How many children would they have had? How many grandchildren would they have had? What might they have accomplished? Their children accomplished? What might they have contributed to humankind? But it's a question we could never know the answer to because here they lie. But the second question, I think we can know the answer to that question. And that is, what would the world look like today had they not made their sacrifice?
Dr. James Dobson: Absolutely.
Dwight Anderson: And I think the world that Mr. Hitler envisioned is not the one that's shared by many Americans. So I think we can know what the world would've looked like, had they not made their sacrifice.
Now, I've thought about this for some time. And I think about these men and what they sacrificed and I asked myself, do we owe them a debt? And my answer's going to surprise you because I'm going to say, "No, I don't feel we owe them a debt." And let me explain. You see to me, a debt is something that can be repaid and what these men gave us was a gift. And so I'll put it in a biblical sense for you. If you think about God gave mankind the gift of his son, Jesus Christ, who came down and died for our sins. He sacrificed his son and he gave us that gift of eternal life. Now these men, obviously they didn't die for our sins, but they did die for our freedom. They gave us that gift of freedom. And what we do with that gift is entirely up to us. But we should cherish that gift of freedom every day and never forget these men and honor their sacrifice. And those are the last thoughts that I want to leave you with sir here today for your visit.
Dr. James Dobson: The primary reason we came here is to keep this truth, this story alive. And I fear that the younger generation doesn't understand it. They don't know it. They haven't been here and they haven't been told, most of them about it. And we hope to convey it to them and to do it by radio. And I thank you so much for helping us do that.
Dwight Anderson: The motto of the American Battle Monuments Commission was given to us by General Black Jack Pershing. And he said, "Times shall not dim the glory of their deeds." And so what you're doing and through your ministries and everything, hopefully will keep these stories alive. Because if the young people of today don't know these stories and they don't understand what happened here, we have no one to blame by ourselves. It's our fault if they don't know those stories.
Dr. James Dobson: Well, you've certainly done your part.
Dwight Anderson: Thank you, sir.
Dr. James Dobson: And I thank you for it.
Dwight Anderson: Thank you very much, sir.
Roger Marsh: And with that, we end our tribute to those who fought on the beaches and over the skies of Normandy. Those who fell and those they left behind. They have our gratitude and praise forever. And we will tell the generations. You've been listening to a special two day memorial in honor of D-Day here on Family Talk. If you want to hear more, go to drjamesdobson.org. Or give us a call at (877) 732-6825. And while you're at it, if you're in need of prayer, won't you share your requests with us? We have team members standing by 24/7 to answer your call, suggest resources and to pray with and for you. So please feel free to call us anytime, day or night. Our number once again is (877) 732-6825. This is Roger Marsh. Thanks for joining us today. God bless and we'll see you again next time for another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.
Announcer: This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.