[Darris McNeely]  Today is June 6th. It is the 69th anniversary of the D-Day invasions of France in World War II.

You're looking at a picture of the first American cemetery in France in World War II, the spot that marks the site where over 800 bodies were likely thrown into a mass grave after the first day's battle on Omaha Beach on that famous landing of the allied troops there. It's interesting because of this picture and a connection.

I was reading this morning in the Wall Street Journal an article on the opinion page that was entitled, "My Grandfather Buried Her Father." The author of the article was talking about making a connection with a woman whose father had died on the landing on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944.  This historian after talking for a lengthy period of time with this lady came to realize that the day that her father was buried in a mass grave, the day after the landings on June 7th, 1944, this gentleman, this historian, his grandfather was a chaplain in the army who said the prayer over that particular trench of bodies, that mass grave. And so he said as the title of the article says my grandfather, the chaplain, buried this lady's father, a soldier who died on Omaha Beach on that first day.

I'm reading it this morning, reading it online on the Wall Street Journal, and I realize my father likely was involved in digging that very grave, and this is a picture of that grave. This is a picture my father brought back from World War II. My father landed on Omaha Beach as a combat engineer on that first wave of troops on that morning. He later, the next day, sent a bulldozer to dig this grave on this beach and into which they carried the bodies of those soldiers who died and then created as the sign says the first American cemetery on Omaha Beach. And so I'm making a connection with an article in today's Wall Street Journal. Two people whom I don't know and they don't know me, and we're connected by an event in history. And I happen to have a picture of it that in a sense connects all three of us.

What's more interesting on this is perhaps to a larger story because certainly this was a monumental historical event that as you can see still impacts peoples' lives to this very day. But this picture, I would never have known was what it is unless I had asked my father one night a few years ago before he died as we were going through many pictures that he had brought back from the war. And I saw this picture and I said, "Dad, what is it? What is this picture of?" And he wrote on the back of this picture what I just told you, that it was a mass grave on Omaha Beach dug by his team. He said, "I sent the bulldozer there that did it and we carried the bodies to the grave."

Now the bodies were later exhumed and eventually interred on the American cemetery on the bluffs overlooking Omaha Beach, which you can go and see all of those graves now in a magnificent setting. I would have never known that had I not asked my father. And it was a remarkable story personally to at least have my father recount that in this matter. And it has always taught me a lesson about father son relations, father daughter relations, and all of our relationships with our parents and our loved ones whom we don't always know everything about. And that is to just ask the question and to find out the wisdom that they have and their stories and to understand who they are and what they are. And I'm glad I asked that one question on that one night many years ago of my father to find out exactly what his part was in this historic event by this picture and what it connects us to.

Our parents have wisdom. The common person has a lot of wisdom. My father was a common solider in one sense who lived through that event, and he passed on something to me. This reminds me of a part of the book of Ecclesiastes that is proverbial. It is a piece of wisdom. And as the writer of Ecclesiastes writes in 9:13 he says, "This wisdom I have also seen under the sun, and it seemed great to me. There was a little city with few men in it and a great king came against it, besieged it, and built great snares around it. It was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that same poor man."

It's what war does. War destroys peoples' lives and nobody remember little stories of peoples' lives who were destroyed in those wars of all history, but God does. And this piece of wisdom speaks to us. It goes on, it says, "Wisdom is better than strength. Nevertheless the poor man's wisdom is despised and his words are not heard. Words of the wise spoken quietly should be heard rather than the shout of a ruler of fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war; but one sinner destroys much good" (Ecclesiastes 9:13-18).

Wisdom is better than weapons of war, any war. And the wisdom I received, not only from that one night with my father, but his whole example still speaks to me today. And the wisdom of those who fought and died under unwise rulers and politics and wars of history speak to us in many different ways.

So on a day that marks one of the greatest battles of human history, D-Day, the invasion of Normandy, this little story of people connected through one even that no one really seems to remember does speak to us a great deal of wisdom within our families, within our relationships, and to that greater purpose of God's plan that He has for us.

That's BT Daily. Join us next time.