As I checked into the small hotel not far from the town of Bastogne awkwardness overcame me: here I was, like some child chasing a balloon that had slipped from his hand; chasing a moment in history that had passed 66 years ago.
These people had probably moved on long ago, I thought; and, like in my life, over those 66 years, so much had transpired: births, deaths, other wars had come and gone, marriages, divorces, accidents and worldwide epidemics had even changed the way we speak.
What happened in the woods and fields surrounding the town of Bastogne were events lost to text books and Hollywood, I figured; certainly the people here in this little village, the man plowing his field at ten o'clock at night so as to catch the last few strands of sunlight from this day, had forgotten.
Oh, how I was wrong.
The Belgians are aware of our sacrifice. They celebrate our veterans in plaques, memorials, town squares, through hotel and bar names, museums—so many of them—and fields that have been set aside not to be plowed but to remember the young Americans who gave their lives to push the German offensive back into the forest and out of Belgium.
Inundated in this love-fest for America, I walked around the woods of “Bois Jacques” and the town of Bastogne and, yes, tears of pride came to my eyes. When asked where I was from: “the US,” nods of silent recognition and small smiles pulling at lips greeted me; the unspoken thank you hung in the air. As I sat, sipping on a Belgian Ale, I so wanted to share with my relatives long-since-passed (Uncle Charlie, Aunt Lottie, Gram, my mother and father) the stories, the impressions being made upon me by these people. In place of them, I found an elderly couple from Pennsylvania , the man had fought in those very woods, and we talked. I felt a little better.
I left Belgium for Normandy.
The Normans
On 5 June, I tried to enter the town of Ste. Mere Eglise but due to the crowds the town was closed to traffic. I was forced to park about a mile from downtown. As I clicked my car doors locked, 30 WWII-era C47’s roared overhead and left in their wake a trail of parachutists; floating in peace toward the earth, it was hard to imagine the gunfire, the ringing church bells and the flames from the burning farmhouse which had accompanied a similar jump 66 years ago.
It was all so festive and restoring.
Once on the town square, with American, French and British flags draped all over the town like some set for a movie, I found myself in “Love Fest Number 2.” Packed with revelers, picnics everywhere, rides for the smallest children whirred and smoke from grilled sausages filled the air tugging at stomachs; I grabbed a cold beer and settled in next to a table of vets from the 82nd who had liberated the town. They were regaling with stories of that night paratroopers from today’s 82nd and their French, British and even German “brothers in arms.”
Despite the dwindling number of veterans at the festivities this year and the less-than-obvious presence of townsfolk who were awoken on the night when some of our boys had the misfortune of landing on the main square—resulting in their immediate deaths—the baton of gratitude has been passed. The Normans are grateful and in their French stoicism, even I felt like they were glad to have us there on that day celebrating with them.
Yet, whereas the Belgians are almost giddy at seeing Americans coming to their country to recall those tough months of battle, the French being the French always reserve their most precious emotions for themselves; we get a big thank-you but it still is, like it was only weeks after the liberations, marked with a sense of “okay, you freed us now get going so we can get back to our amazing lives.” Yes, the French still somehow imagine that the greatest sacrifice on that day was their own sacrifice.
Perhaps, they are right but being an American, I simply will never agree with that sentiment. Having walked the beaches and sat in the hedgerow shortly after midnight on the 6th and listened to the sounds that greeted our boys, I was frightened—and this is 66 years later.
The Normans make great cider and wonderful cheese and have accomplished countless amazing things throughout history, but, on D-Day the sacrifice belonged to us, to the Brits, to the Canadians and even the to the French paratroopers who jumped in shortly before midnight on the 5th.
Sacrifice
Over the course of these two days this past June, I had the great honor of meeting and thanking our veterans—“the boys” as they prefer to be called. Two of the men I met had landed in the first wave literally 100 yards away from each other and had never met before. They started recalling similar events—particularly large explosions, pauses in the shooting—“like everyone on both sides just took a deep breath”-- and the many tragedies from that day.
As they recalled a certain LST—troop carrier--explosion, they both fell silent, turned toward the gathered crowd and made some comments about how they had lost the groups they had come here with; the tears had dried already for these men as slowly walked off toward the white crosses, but for many of us present, the tears fell.
“I was there.” One 93-year old vet looking at my “Battle of the Bulge” baseball cap said. Reaching out my hand, I began to stumble over the words, swallowed and said “thank you for your service, sir.” A tear fell and I wondered, what else can be said to a man who landed on D-day, fought through Bastogne and ended the war in Berlin?
As I sat in my car overlooking Omaha Beach just after H-Hour, I sipped on a cider from trees that had been christened by the blood of our boys. Marveling at the distance from the water to the seawall, I wondered, are we as good a nation today as we were then? I wondered, could I have made that run across the sand under such intense fire? Would I have even tried?
The boys on those beaches, falling from the sky, rotting in the jungles of the Pacific, fought not so we could become the nation we are today; responsibility for everything shunned by all, pinned to some “deep dark moment from childhood;” gluttony now the new national pastime and like dark periods from what we had hoped were in the past, immigrants—both illegal and legal ones—being persecuted not by fanatics this time but by so-called mainstream—although somewhat radical—Americans.
And, these policies are being veiled in “Christianity” and "patriotism." Sounds, however, just like the ideology our boys landing on these Norman shores were fighting to rid Europe of.
The Boys fought for Different Reasons
The boys of D-Day did not fight for an intolerant America; an America where corporate interests and the wealthy are permitted to spend however much they want to get their “representatives” elected; an America that disrespects a President because he is black, has a Muslim-sounding name and tries to off-set the gains of thirty years of political abuse by the right in order to give the struggling American worker a fighting chance.
The boys of D-Day fought for truth, liberty and justice for all: not lies passed off as the truth ( WMD, no global warming, health care is socialism), imprisonment because you are poor and no justice for the same reason. They did not fight for an America that has come to so hate educated and smart people. It used to be a sign of accomplishment to have obtained a great education but today, unless your institution of higher learning is not a place linked to bible studies or great football teams, then you are considered a leftist, a “communist.”
In Normandy, I was so proud and I thought: if only every American spitting the vitriol of today’s political hysteria (the Tea Party nuts) could see this, we would be a better and freer nation still.
Tomorrow would be better than today--a very American notion, indeed.
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