Launched amid tepid weather conditions with a two-word command from Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight Eisenhower, “Let’s Go!,” the 1944 assault on the German-occupied European fortress began with the Allied invasion of Normandy on this day, June 6, 64 years ago.

Across the Atlantic Ocean on a strip of well-manicured grass at the top of a hill, white marble crosses and Stars of David stand lined up like soldiers over those who eternally rest below.

Today, as the youth of our nation fights in Iraq and Afghanistan, we remember not only those who fought and lived to see the fruits of their blood, sweat, toil, and tears, but also those who fought and, mournfully, did not make it.

There are few men who have engaged in battle throughout history that have known the weariness of its commission more intimately than those who fought in Normandy during the world’s struggle for freedom in the 20th century.

This largest armada ever assembled carried men from every corner of our nation — the rural farmer who left his land to be a part of the arsenal of democracy, the urban grocer who left his store in the care of his wife, or the expectant father who fought for the cause of liberty and never returned to look into the curious eyes of a newborn son that shared his name. Their tales, stories of sacrifice and selflessness, are endless.

All those who walk on free soil today owe the soldiers, sailors, and airmen the world we live in. The heroes of Normandy deserve our recognition just as much this year as they did in 1944. Long overdue is the honor found in the remembrance of their altruistic deeds.

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it,” Thomas Paine wrote about the American struggle for independence nearly two centuries ago in the early winds of another war in another continent.

In today’s contemplative atmosphere, it seems impossible for a time to come when the achievements of our fighting force is forgotten. Our duty, if not our conscious, should never let this happen. The gratitude of today’s free world is too numerous to present in one museum or one thousand; it remains as countless as the grains of sand our soldiers’ boots stood firm on top of or their fallen bodies collapsed motionless upon.

Recently increased interest in World War II-related events can be found in movies such as “Atonement” and television documentaries such as Ken Burns’s “The War,” which aired on PBS in September 2007. Interest lies not only in the battles themselves but in those who fought them — Mr. Burns’s documentary focused on a few individuals and told the story of World War II around theirs. Those who find interest in the subject come with a duality of purpose: a rite of passage for the young in understanding more about the war and a pilgrimage for our more mature generation who can’t, and don’t want to, forget our history.

For the boys who landed on a foreign beach, fear was a distinct part of their bravery, instantly forcing them to become men beyond their years. Their own narratives about the immeasurable achievements made in encounter after encounter with an enemy favored to be victorious are told not with boastful exaggeration or inflated heroism but through a sense of duty and a matter-of-factness that they were just doing their part in the war.

Casualty numbers can dismiss the faces of those lost to the tragedy. The anguish felt by each hand-typed telegram transformed families. Proudly displayed Blue Stars adorning windows throughout the nation were replaced by grief-stricken Gold Stars as a symbol of sacrifice.

In France today, an American flag waves high over a hill on a foreign coastline in tribute to those who set it free from the yoke of oppressive tyranny.

As we go about the routine of our own lives, the youth of this nation fights a war on terror at home and abroad. Through their sacrifice we witness the continuing story of freedom, and the fatigue that the men and women of our military endure in supporting it.

Mr. Coll, an adjunct professor of American History at Nassau and Suffolk Community Colleges, is a detective in the NYPD assigned to the Emergency Service Unit.