Viewed from above, the rolling green grass seems dusted
with snow. But Summer is upon the land, and our snowflakes do not melt. Row
upon row of white stone crosses stand where the jackboot tread and Rommel
smiled. Sentinels ever, they whisper, “Never again, but if so, our sons will
yet defy the enemy.”
We gaze into their eyes, their portraits fading now, and
yellow about the edges. Their features so young, so sharp, so vibrant. Their lips
full of a healthy pride. Their eyes speak volumes. A million unfinished dreams
and unspoken destinies.
And like gladiators of old, they steel their spirits and
set forth into the unknown. A young private asks his sergeant, “How many will
not come back?” The older man responds, “Many, most… I don’t know.” A tear
forms in the young man’s eyes, and the lump in his throat betrays his fear.
Other men smile, as if to say, “It won’t be me. I’m coming out of this. I’m
going home when this is over.”
The waves are large, and the gale is brisk. The sea is
spread thick with ships, and boats and landing craft of every description,
bobbing like bottles in a bathtub.
And we see them as they make their way to sandy beaches.
Beaches with code names like Utah, Omaha, Gold, Sword and Juno. Thirty-five
amphibious tanks are dispatched into the cold surf. Thirty-two begin to sink,
their desperate crewmen clamoring to get out of the turrets. Many drown.
Others, having escaped certain death, flounder in deep waters now, their ammo
and packs weighing them down. Calling, crying for help, they beg crewmen in
other craft to pick them up. But more often than not, they are ignored. The
urgency of the mission is foremost. As they begin to perish anguish breaks
within the bosoms of those who watch, those who cannot respond.
A landing craft finds the sandy bottom, and the huge door
falls flat forward. Thirty men scramble to reach shallow water, and their
objective. And before the sound of gunfire can reach their ears, or any
understanding of their fate dawns upon them, they lie dead. For these thirty,
mission complete, mission over.
Oh, the glider troops. The sky is full of them. Loosed
from mother planes, these frail craft ride the winds, and winds and terrain
offer these men different fates. For some crash violently against cities and
trees and earth, and all on board are lost. Others display the art of
controlled crashes, upright at least, a broken shoulder here, a twisted ankle
there.
The Rangers. There can be none like them. For they begin
to climb, treacherous enough without added difficulties. They are greeted with
all the trouble of a plan gone bad. Hot bullets rain down upon their hapless
bodies. Live grenades shower the rocks around them.
And some reach the summit. And some win the prize.
And some come again to walk the beaches. To smell the
salt water. To read inscriptions on stark stone crosses. To live that day anew.
To weep, unashamed among a thousand other men who are doing the same.
We have come to an anniversary of that day. D-Day. A day
that is still living in the hearts and minds of the survivors. They cannot
forget. They bid a new generation to remember. To remember that young,
shiny-eyed trooper who ran across the beach, only to fall, and to understand in
his last mortal moment that Normandy’s sand had become the waning sands of his
own hourglass.
To remember the commitment of such a one as this. The
paratrooper who might have stayed down after the first bullet grazed his
forehead. But such a one as this who stood, and fought and fell again, never
more to rise.
The soft breeze stirs the waters of Normandy. The waves
wash easily across the clean, white sand. Though the blood, and footprints of
just men have been cleansed by the whelming flood of water, their stone crosses
stand sentinel, just above the cliffs, just beyond the field of their labor.
They gave their tomorrows for our todays.
By William McDonald, PhD. Copyright 1998
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