Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

It is Friday, June 4, 2004, and we are heading into the weekend. But not just any weekend; it is my birthday weekend. Mine and the birthday of the invasion of Normandy, which occurred on June 6, 1944, within hours of my birth in the early morning hours of June 7.

All through my life, D-Day and my birthday have coincided. When I was little my Mother often said, as my birthday approached, “You were born the day after D-Day,” as if this were some special recognition.

Even my father, whom I did not meet until I was forty-eight, told me that he and my Mother sat up all night listening to the radio and learning of the invastion on June 6. The next day, they were coping with their own invasion.

Early on, I didn’t see the connection, but as time passed I began to reevaluate what it means to have a birthday on the day after D-Day. Not just a birthday on the anniversary of the day after D-Day, but the actual event.

A few years back, my Aunt Alice found and sent me a copy of the front page of the New York Times for June 7, 2004. It contained the first reports of what happened on those beaches and in those important beach towns. The main headline reads: “Hitler’s Sea Wall is Breached, Invaders Fighting Way Inland; New Allied Landings are Made.” Not surprisingly, there was no mention of my birth.

Currently this newspaper is framed and hangs in my office to remind me that, while I love birthdays more than Valentine’s Day or Christmas, men lay dying while I was being born. There is a connection here after all.

This particular year D-Day and I both turn sixty. I’m pleased that much is being made of the remaining veterans from that conflict, who are dying at the rate of approximately one thousand a day. I’m also pleased that Earl, his daughter, and son-in-law have gone to great lengths to hold a party in my honor. I feel grateful that all of us — ancient soldiers and an aging woman — are all being remembered together.