Sixty-eight years ago today, the greatest armada in recorded history invaded occupied France, defeated the Nazis shortly thereafter, and paved the way for the end of World War II.

In 2005, I read Stephen Ambrose's great D-Day book. Riveting reading--Ambrose puts you right in the middle of the battle. If you liked "Saving Private Ryan" you will like this book.

A couple nuggets I remember from the book relate to sea sickness and bagpipes. With rough seas in the English Channel, there was an epic sea sickness problem for the allies. Untold soldiers vomited violently on their way over and some remembered it being so bad that they didn't even care they would be facing Germans with machine guns on the beach; they just wanted off the boat, pronto.

I also learned from the Ambrose book that the British on D-Day still were using the old tradition of "piping" soldiers into battle with bagpipes. There were literally folks on some of the boats whose job it was to play inspirational tunes on bagpipes. I suppose the modern day equivalent is our soldiers listening to heavy metal music (which I have read is quite common) before a battle.

Here's another recommendation: the WWII museum in New Orleans (formerly the D-Day museum). It is a great spot; I have been twice and the highlight of course was a docent who shared his stories of parachuting into Nazi-occupied France on D-Day. With a lump in my throat, I thanked him sincerely for his service to our country.

Finally, we should all take a moment to remember the courage and sacrifices of our soldiers who gave all on bloody French beaches 68 years ago. As a result of WWI and WWII, over 60,000 US soldiers are buried in cemeteries in France. As Colin Powell has said so eloquently, in the entire history of the US, the only land we have ever asked for when we have helped liberate a country, is the amount required to bury our soldiers.

Here's a D-Day slide show from CNN.