Three-quarters a century

IT’S BEEN 73 years this month since a young football player from the University of Arkansas volunteered to serve his country and dropped into France. His name was Gene Sellers, private, first-class, one each.

He was a Pathfinder, and anybody who’s ever been in the military will tell you those guys are high-speed, low-drag. They’re the ones who go in before the Rangers and other airborne. It was PFC Sellers’ mission to drop into Normandy hours before the invasion and set up drop-zone lights and radar to guide the airborne airplanes that would be coming with the “first wave” shortly. First is relative.

Dispatches say his parachute drifted too close to a German unit. He was one of the first, if not the first, American killed on D-Day.

A congressman from Arkansas, one French Hill, went to France this month to address the commemoration of D-Day—June 6, 1944. As has been said before, Americans have left these shores to help others many times, and only asked for enough land to bury our dead.

“The citizens of our American Republic will always stand strong with our friends in the face of tyranny,” Congressman Hill said. “And should the people of Europe ever need American aid again, I know that we will answer the call with the same conviction and selfless valor that won the day and won the war some seven decades ago.”

Our European allies need to hear that from Washington more often. So do the rest of us.

The United States has been recognizing a more round number of late, with this being the 100th year of our entry into the First World Catastrophe. (Today marks the 100th year, to the day, when General Pershing and his staff arrived in Paris.)

But there are other anniversaries to consider as the years march on. June 6 is one of the big ones.