World War II veterans arrive Tuesday at Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, for a commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the June 6, 1944, D-Day landings.

As America and its European allies from World War II observe the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion — known as Operation Overlord on June 6, 1944 — the poignancy of the moment is heightened by the mortality of its dwindling number of participants.

The average age of surviving soldiers from D-Day is 100.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Lou Conter, the last surviving Pearl Harbor crewmember from the battleship Arizona, died in April in Grass Valley (Nevada County) at 102.

Advertisement

Article continues below this ad

Anyone living now with a clear, contemporaneous memory of World War II is probably 85. As a kid, the war veterans were just our fathers and mothers, neighbors, relatives, scout leaders, coaches and ministers.

In this moment, it is our final chance to thank them all, and we should.

In my own family, I vividly recall my mother telling me about how she and my grandmother huddled by the cathedral radio in her house on Riverside Avenue in Sacramento, anxiously listening for any word about the huge military operation their brother and son, Sgt. Hal Marlowe Jensen, an Army engineer, was thrown into.

Sgt. Hal Marlowe Jensen was an Army engineer at D-Day and helped build a dock that allowed 2.5 million soldiers, 500,000 vehicles and 4 million tons of supplies to land at Normandy.

About 10 years ago, I went to that........

© San Francisco Chronicle