On a cool, dreary morning, June 6, 1944, the Allied armies, 180,000 strong, began landings in France on the Normandy coast. The men were wet, sea sick, cold and scared but all wanted to end the reign of evil fostered upon Europe by Hitler's Germany and come home to their loved ones. More than 7,000 would not this day and many times that would die in the next 11 months, but the die was cast and Nazi Germany would not survive.
But on this day there was hell to pay on earth. The Germans had spent 4 years building Festung Europa; concrete works, gun emplacements, beach obstacles, flooded landing areas and mines all along the coast of France. The German commander, Feld Marschall Erwin Rommel, had pledged to meet the Allied attack at the beach and drive it into the sea before it could gain a toe hold.
The fighting was fierce all along the Allied front but was especially terrible in the American sector at Omaha beach, assigned to the US veteran 1st and green 29th Divisions. Because of high bluffs overlooking the beach, the Germans were able to pre-sight the entire beachfront in that sector with interlocking fire and support from their feared 88's. Indeed the first waves of soldiers on this beach were almost all killed or wounded within minutes, including the famed Bedford Boys, a large contingent of men in the 1st Division from Bedford, Virginia.
Yet our indomitable American Spirit could not be suppressed even under these ghastly and tragic circumstances. Somehow, these men gathered up the steel to climb out of the sea, now red with American blood, blow holes in the blocked causeways along the beach, and pierce the Nazi defenses in a morning. By the afternoon of the 6th, 70,000 men were on the beachhead and the flood of Allied strength, led by the Americans, could not be contained.
To be sure there were weeks of bloody, brutal fighting in Normandy yet to unfold, with horrendous losses on both sides. The British were bled nearly white around the key coastal town of Caen, and the US Army was not ready for the intricate defenses the Germans had prepared of the Normandy hedgerows in their sector, known as bocage. But we endured, and so began the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.
My personal experience World War II is very limited. I am a baby-boomer, born in the mid-50's in the midst of the Cold War. My father served in the army but because of poor eyesight, was not drafted until 1945. He and the rest of the draftees were discharged in 1946.
One of his brothers however, served in the 101st Airborne Division, which was part of the D-Day assault. It jumped into Normandy at mid-night of the 6th behind Omaha beach; it's job was to create roadblocks for German reinforcements rushing to the front. Uncle John survived the battle but was a changed and disturbed man when he returned home, haunted for the rest of his life by images and memories he carried to his grave, untold. Today we would call it Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Back then it was unacknowledged and untreated.
So what does all this mean to me? I am a student of history. I have made a special personal effort to study and to understand the degree of devotion and sacrifice servicemen and women have made to our country. I appreciate that I enjoy civil liberties the world has never seen before, ensured by the blood and toil of all who came before me. I am proud and humble to be an American at the same time.
But we are not perfect. Our government, acting in what it believes are our best interests, has not always done the right thing. And we pay for those mistakes every day in blood, treasure and world standing. Yet, America, despite all of our deep-seated racial and equality issues, our flawed politics and our short-sightedness is still great. To all of our haters, what would the world have been like without us? Who would have stood effectively up against those who sought to dominate and enslave the world? And who continues to serve as a check against those who would choose to do great harm and injustice to their neighbors? Look in the mirror. It's us.
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