D-Day Plus 70

Normandy is a beautiful area famed for its apples, scenery and battle space.  This day I have intentionally taken the time to watch many of the array of programs all focused on the invasion, honoring of veterans and their stories, assessment of the battle from both sides. It still grasps my heart when I see the terrible business of war and I have never been able to watch Saving Private Ryan since the first time due to the carnage of war.  Knowing men in my childhood that came ashore, some wounded with lifelong limps, all with stories yet never told; that is what brings this sense of choking to me as I try so hard not to be moved to tears; but I always lose that battle. Knowing so many that went to Vietnam during my teenage years and seeing them return, if they returned, different! Really different and I could not understand why.

 

It is all made much more panoramic and real in having walked those beaches, walked Pointe du Hoc and can still enter the 88 mm German gun emplacements, see the pocked earth from shells from battleships trying to quell the German defenses and held rock from the cliffs our Rangers had to scale. Walking through the American Military Cemetery at Omaha Beach just yards from still existing machine gun bunkers that easily scanned the beaches with our soldiers trying to get ashore. I have held in my hands fists of the hallowed sand upon which so many never got to leave from and have stood behind the breech of a German artillery piece near Saint Mere Elgise implaced for firing at our landing ships. It is all so real like the infamous paratrooper that got stranded atop the chapel in Saint Mere Eglise with a dummy parachutist still dangling from the top of the chapel.  I stayed in a hotel in the town but could not sleep for thinking about what had happened there, so close, so real, so amazing, so wrenching still!

 

One of the markers of my adult life is having the opportunity to walk many major battlefields and seeing many, too many, international military cemeteries. Gettysburg, Sharpsburg, Verdun, Bastogne, Metz, Amiens, Casablanca, etc, etc and with each one my whole brain is transformed back to the carnage, smoke, noise, death! It is really strange for me to feel like it is all happening again and I am there in the midst of it all.  Sleep goes away for a day or two after the experience and I will dream about the battle due to consuming books and research on the strategy and the tactics and the political situation that led to the conflict and yes, the devastating loss of life for generations of scars and anguish. It is all just so real!

 

On this night where much has been celebrated about this great battle, all deserved, and seeing the veterans for the last time, and they know it as well, I am reminded of the simple true of it all; FREEDOM IS NOT FREE!  When I see the world today that these men and women fought so hard to protect, I am, frankly, pained and sickened in many cases.  Alcoholism, drug addictions, crimes, divorce, wrecked families, emotional scars that never erase, heinous acts during the campaign triggered many times by experiencing deaths of close friends in combat and retribution ensues; all these and more are part of the cost of war but the price of Freedom.

 

As this day ends and the clocks of destiny prepare to chime, my heart is warmed by being an American, by having worn the warrior cloth, by knowing so many, young and old, that paid such a dear and lasting price for our freedom.  When conducting chapel services in the prisons, I will always ask if there are any veterans there and invariably there are. I ask them to stand, what branch they were in, hand salute them, shake their hand and hug them close in thanking them for what they did for our country; our Freedom.  I am a patriotic person and still cry at the National Anthem, my heart rate always increases when I see a Veteran with his or her hat on indicating their service and love to walk up to them, hand salute them, shake their hand as well as the hands of their family members that always beam and tear up with me.  When I have my grandsons, I love knowing they are watching their Poppy render that level of respect for I get to explain it all to them. They will now do the same thing as will their children due to the stories of watching their Poppy; a generational hope for me!

 

I close by saying thank you to every person reading this that gave something for my freedom and for the freedoms of my family.  I am so honored to have met so many on this journey. I have seen the physical and emotional scarring and the impact on families for years and generations to come.  And yes, FREEDOM IN NOT FREE .. nor should it be, ever! So the question; what have you done to pay for that Freedom?

 

Be blessed!