Rep. Morgan McGarvey joins lawmakers in Normandy for D-Day commemoration
WASHINGTON — Rep. Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, says he has been thinking about his grandfathers this week.
“My dad’s parents divorced, but both remarried,” he said. “I had three grandfathers. All three served in World War II. All three served in that theater. All three had incredibly different experiences.”
Thursday marks 80 years since American and allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy.
Over 4,000 lost their lives there, in what became the turning point in the allied fight against Nazi Germany in World War II.
McGarvey, a Louisville Democrat serving on the Veterans Affairs Committee, was invited to join a bipartisan group of lawmakers to commemorate the day in Normandy.
“It’s really important to me,” he told Spectrum News. “I was close with my grandfathers, and to go over there and be there and see it and to think about what they were doing as young men … it gives me chills just to think about it.”
The trip is a show of unity amid deep partisan divisions in Washington, including over the role of the U.S. in the Ukraine war, and conflicts around the globe.
“We must show that we can continue to come together and that we can fight for what’s right,” McGarvey said. “We can stand up for those who had that bravery in the past.”
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the chamber’s Republican leader, wrote an op-ed in The New York Times about the anniversary.
McConnell has long supported a muscular U.S. foreign policy, the NATO alliance and the U.S. defense of Ukraine, positions mostly at odds with the MAGA wing of Republican Party loyal to former President Donald Trump.
In the op-ed, McConnell reflected on the relevance of D-Day to today, writing, “It should not take another catastrophic attack like Pearl Harbor to wake today’s isolationists from the delusion that regional conflicts have no consequences for the world’s most powerful and prosperous nation … Nor should President Biden or congressional Democrats require another major conflict to start investing seriously in American hard power.”
By: Erin Kelly
Source: Spectrum News