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当谈到战争，我们很容易就会想到它的残酷性——多少人因此丧生，多少人流离失所，我们会因此怀念那些为了和平而牺牲的英雄们，纪念他们的浴血奋战，与此同时我们也会谴责那些战争犯，怒斥他们的种种罪行，等等。我们以我们的方式纪念、记住了战争，但是，战争本身是带给人伤痛的，所以缅怀战争本身不是主要的目的。在诺曼底登陆战发生 60 年后，我们的视角应该转向战争给后人的启发上面——以战争为戒，珍视和平，维护和平！
Sixty years ago today, the free world held its breath. In America, daily life paused almost completely, subdued by the news that the invasion of Europe—D-Day—had begun.From the 21st century, we try to imagine the scale of what went forward in that gray dawn after years of preparation—the ships and men and materiel, the reserves of willpower and determination. What we sometimes forget to imagine is the almost prayerful nature of the day, the profound investment of hope and fear it entailed. It was a day in America and in Europe when civilians as surely as soldiers felt the whole of their lives concentrated on the outcome of a few hours. There has not been another time like it, when we knew that history was about to turn before our eyes.
In a way, D-Day sums up for us the whole of World War Ⅱ. It was the frontal clash of two ideas, a collision between the possibility of human freedom and its nullification. Even now, we are still learning what to make of it,still trying to know whether we are dwarfed by the scale of such an effort or whether what happened that day still enlarges us. It certainly enlarges the veterans [1] of Normandy and their friends who died in every zone of that war.
It’s tempting to politicize the memory of a day so full of personal and national honor,too easy to allude to the wars of our times as if they naturally mirrored World War Ⅱ. The iconic starkness of the forces that met on the beaches of Normandy makes that temptation all the greater. But beyond the resemblance of young soldiers dying in wars 60 years apart,there is no analogy, and that is something we must remember today as well. D-Day was the result of broad international accord. By D-Day, Europe had been at war—total war—for nearly five years, at profound cost to its civilian population. American civilians, in turn, had willingly made enormous material sacrifices to sustain the war effort. There was no pretense that ordinary life would go on uninterrupted and no assumption that America could go it alone.
We may find the heroics of D-Day stirring in the extreme. We may struggle to imagine the special hell of those beaches, the almost despairing lurch [2] of the landing craft as they motored toward France. Those were brave times. But it was a bravery of shared sacrifice, a willingness to rise to an occasion that everyone prayed would never need to come again. This is a day to respect the memory of 60 years ago and, perhaps, to wonder what we might rise to if only we asked it of ourselves.
60 年前的今天，自由世界屏住了呼吸。在美国，诺曼底登陆的消息传来，日常生活几乎完全停顿了。今天，我们站在 21 世纪去想象发生在那个灰暗的黎明、经过多年准备的进攻，战船、战士、作战物资，还有储备已久的意志和决心，规模气势之宏大令人难以想象。可是我们有时却忘了，那一天也是在祈祷中度过的，人们对登陆投入了极大的希望，同时也心存极大的恐惧。那一天，在美国和欧洲，平民和士兵一样，感到他们全部的生命都维系在那几个小时战斗的结局上。历史上从来没有过这样的时刻，因为人们知道历史即将在他们眼前发生变化。
在某种意义上说，诺曼底登陆是第二次世界大战全景的缩影。它是两种观念的正面冲突，是自由和奴役之间的生死决战。即便在今天，我们仍然在认识它的意义，仍然在寻找答案，我们到底是因那宏大的战争场景显得矮小了，还是因此而变得高大。毫无疑问，那一天肯定使参与诺曼底登陆的退役军人和他们在各个战区中牺牲的战友们变得高大。
今天我们回忆这一天，很容易将其政治化，因为那一天充满了个人的光荣和国家的荣耀，我们很容易将它和今天的战争联系起来，仿佛我们今天进行的战争自然可以和第二次世界大战同日而语。在诺曼底海滩上交锋的两股势力象征着壁垒分明的善恶对峙，这就更诱人想做这种联想。但是，60 年后正在进行的战争和第二次世界大战除了年轻的战士正在牺牲之外，并没有任何相似之处。这一点我们今天也必须记住。诺曼底登陆是广泛国际合作的结果。截至登陆日，欧洲早已战火纷飞，将近五年的战争使得平民生灵涂炭。美国的平民为了支持这场战争，也心甘情愿地做出了巨大的物质牺牲。当时人们已经不能无视战争而一如往常地生活，人们也不能相信美国可以独自行动。
今天我们会觉得诺曼底登陆那天的英雄壮举令人感动，我们简直可能无法想象当年海滩上地狱般的激战，无法想象冲向法国海岸的登陆艇是如何在波涛中绝望地颠簸前行的。这些都是勇敢的时刻。但这是同舟共济的勇敢行为，它显示了那一代人在需要他们的时刻挺身而起面对挑战的意志，而我们每个人都祷告，那样的时刻不要再来。让我们在这一天以崇敬的心情回忆 60 年前那次恢宏的战役，也许我们还可以借此自问，要是我们也被召唤，我们能面对什么样的挑战？
Look at the following sentences and tell whether they are right or wrong.
1.From the passage, we know that remembering those heroes is most important thing.
2.The passage is titled June 6, 1944 to tell people to keep this war in mind and think about it and to draw a lesson from it.
3.In the text it says that the Normandy Landing sums up to the whole WWⅡ because it was between Germany and France.
4.The wars happened before and the wars that are happening and will happen in the future have the same goals exactly.
1.× 2.√ 3.× 4.×
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Forty-five years ago, the world was all ears. In front of the Lincoln Memorial, the crowd gathered, all absorbed by the inspiring words that came out from a man who spoke up for his people who have remained repressed even after they were legally free of slavery. And nearly a hundred years ago before that, Abraham Lincoln, braving all the doubts and criticism against him, preserved the unity of the whole nation through the Civil War and liberated a people who had been suffered from discrimination and segregation the first time they stepped on this land. And today, an outstanding man of African origin has become the president of the United States of America, which marks a new chapter of the history of African Americans in the US and also of the history of this land of democracy and freedom.
Despite the difficulties beyond them, the African Americans have never ceased to continue their struggle for equal rights. Step by step, they are endeavored with formidable persistence and spared no effort to rewrite a new chapter of history of their own. Thus today, a man whose father more than fifty years ago was not given the right to vote can stand before hundreds of millions of people and make the most sacred oath as the president of a nation when segregation and discrimination against the African Americans used to be rampant.
[1] veteran: one who has been a member of the armed forces退伍军人
[2] lurch: abrupt up-and-down motion 蹒跚