Seventy-five years ago this evening, my father was one of thousands of American GIs massed on the British side of the English channel. On the evening of June 5, 1944 he and all the other GIs were handed copies of this letter from General Eisenhower letting them know that the long-awaited invasion of France would take place in the morning. It’s hard to comprehend that this was a moment when the history of the world hung in the balance and that men like my father, who came from a small mountain town and had never left his home state of Washington until the war, shouldered the hopes of the free world. Lucky for me and the rest of his family, my father would not land on Omaha Beach until June 8, the third day of the invasion, and therefore missed the worst of the fighting. Too many of his comrades were not so fortunate. They died in Europe, Africa, and Asia to keep racism and fascism from the United States. They would never have imagined that they would succeed in stopping Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito only to have proud racists and fascists in the White House and in Congress less than a century later. That’s our fight, and it will be just as tough and existential as theirs. We must accept nothing less than full Victory!