Great and Noble Undertaking

One of the most powerful symbols for me is the D-Day invasion stripes; they are the black-and-white stripes painted on most allied planes on D-Day. They are introduced to limit friendly fire, but at the same it has come to symbolized all that was of WWII.

Which made it a thrill for me when they brought one of the actual planes that participated in the D-Day invasion to the air show at Andrews AFB, stripes and all:


I couldn't help but have goosebumps: this is the plane that flew into Normandy and dropped paratroopers that were real-life analogs of Private Ryan. And those stripes are testaments to that great and horrible day. In his D-Day speech, General Eisenhower called on his troops to "embark upon the Great Crusade", and in that sense, the black-and-white invasion stripes are the banners of Crusade, in place to the red-and-white stripes of the Templars.

And yet there is one (of many) important distinction between the Crusaders and the "Great Crusade" that was D-Day. It was an invasion of the citizen army; neither knights nor aristocrats stormed Normandy. It was Fanfare for The Common Man in place of Churchill's exhortation of the so much owed by so many to so few. It was kids, most of whom younger than students in my econ class, who jumped out of those planes, some never to return.

Happy Memorial Day.