The ceremonies in France the last 48 hours made me actually open myself up to the horrors of WW2, and review the damage to our world by that conflict.
The world, in phases, came together to fight a movement that was simply self absorbed.
If you find the time, read about the deaths in that war. The United States lost over 400,000 military. The Soviet Union lost almost TEN MILLION military and 25 MILLION total citizenry...
This epic war left no part of the world untouched and the numbers killed and wounded are simply incredible..
World War 2 Statistics
The link is not political but just a list of deaths of human beings by country.
WW2 was unbelievable, and while we honor all vets, recalling this horrific time in world history serves to keep everything in perspective, and we do tend to forget sacrifice and WW2 offered up so much in the way of sacrifice, it is difficult to even imagine.
I put myself through this excercise of revisiting this time in history simply to remind myself of what we should be fighting against to prevent even worse times.