C-Day: What was it like the night before?

Tomorrow is the 75th anniversary of "Operation Overlord" commonly known as "D-Day."

Bedford Va. is home to the National D-Day Memorial and tomorrow a huge gala is planned including a flyover of every plane used in that incredible operation. This week I've been seeing some of them in the skies overhead, I guess practicing for the big events tomorrow.

All this week on the news they have been discussing it. Today, I got pretty emotional thinking about it. Thinking about what June 5th 1944 must have felt like for those guys. Most of them were around 19 years old. They were still kids. I remember when I was 19 and all I wanted to do was cruise Newark De in my Chevelle and hang with my buddies and go to work each day. I never went to sleep, knowing that the following morning there was a nine in ten chance I would die.

How could they sleep that night, knowing that in the morning, they faced insurmountable odds? What kind of letters home did they write? What kind of prayers were prayed? What did it feel like to hear the roar of the machine gun fire and the clank of the rounds hitting the drop gate of the Higgins boat and pretty much assume you were going to die? What was it like stepping over your dead comrades as you dove into the water and made for shore, wondering when the bullet with your name on it was coming? What sort of madness did they see? The sound of gunfire, the explosion of ordnance and shrieks of the wounded. These were just boys. Just out of high school and in many cases having quit school and lied about their age to join. 

I just can't get the thoughts out of my head. The incredible bravery in the face of unspeakable horror. The desire to defeat evil. A desire so strong that you'd charge into the butchery of Omaha, or Utah, or Gold, or Juno, or Sword. 

The only person I ever saw die was my grandmother at 93. It was amazing and beautiful as she literally reached out to Jesus as He came to take her. (It's an amazing story I will share one day) I can't fathom seeing my friend, or my brother die suddenly and violently beside me. And having to stuff that horror down inside me and press on. 

Years ago, in Nashville, I met a man who was 82nd Airborne on that day. He was climbing up the rope ladders they shot up the cliffs at Normandy. Climbing to reach the gunnery nests at the top. He told me that about every 30 seconds, another of his comrades would fall from above him and he'd have to spin himself around and get on the inside of those rope ladders and press himself against the cliff to avoid being hit by the body. Sometimes they were dead already and sometimes they were screaming as they fell. He had to swallow all that and get right back to climbing.

They did all this because there was an undeniable evil at work in the world, and the time had come to put it down. At this point, nobody knew about the prison camps and the ovens and the "Final Solution." That horror was still to be discovered. This mission was about stopping Hitler.

These men ran face-first into hell and punched death in the mouth because it was right, and doing what was right demanded their very lives. 9 out of 10 of the first wave never made it off the beach.

Nine out of Ten.

For me, and for my generation, this is some of what the flag represents. It's why you stand and respect it. America is not perfect. It was probably even less perfect on June 6, 1944. But they didn't fight for a perfect country. They fought for THIS one. They fought for what was right and they did it under that flag. 

Tomorrow is the 75th anniversary. 25 years from now, when we memorialize this day again, there won't be one single survivor in attendance to tell us stories of the horror, the battle, or then sense of right that made them rush out the door of those landing craft. They will all have joined their fallen comrades and become ghosts on the beachfront, and names on marble headstones in places like Arlington and Point du Hoc, and Normandy. I have wiped tears from my eyes at various points this week and I've choked back this lump in my throat more times than I can count. 

In another few years none of them will be left to thank. None of them will be around to tell the stories and remember the guy in the boat next to him. 

That's why we stand for the flag and the anthem...because we owe those guys and all the other guys like them from every war we've ever fought. Because if they'd die for the sake of that flag, the least I can do is stand for it.

And if they'd run out of a boat into a hail of gunfire for the sake of what is right...I have no excuses for not defending what is right in the safety and comfort of this country.

If you have a relative who fought in WWII (or any war,) please...tell them I send my eternal gratitude and love. 

God Bless the 4400 who died that day

and God Bless America.

The only D-Day Vet I ever got to meet...

I don't like commenting on days dedicated to remembering great battles or great soldiers. Only because it's THEIR day and I don’t feel worthy of anything except a heartfelt “Thank You.”

But it’s D-Day, (plus 25,915) and I suddenly remembered my only meeting with a D-Day survivor. It’s worth telling. I hope I tell it in a way that doesn’t make it about me. There are people who will do that. People who will retell a story they heard from a veteran as if they themselves had been there. I hate that sort of thing. I’m also not a guy to claim deep abiding friendship with someone I follow on Twitter or Face book. Just because we “Like” each other doesn’t mean we’re actually friends. I wanted that out there too, because I’m not claiming friendship with this man.

In fact…I don’t remember his full name. His first name was Paul, I believe. I met him at a Bible study in Nashville. It was a suburban home in the toney section of town near Lipscomb University He was there to visit his grandson and he was invited to go along to the group. After the meeting, when we were all sort of hanging around and chit chatting, (a group of about 30) Paul was sitting on the stairs, eating a cookie. I walked over and simply pointed to his hat and said “Thank you for your service, sir.” He was wearing a “Scrambled Eggs” cap that said “WWII Veteran” on it.

Having two uncles and a grandfather who served in that war, I asked him what theater he was in. He said “Europe.” I asked him what area he was in and he said “Oh a few…I landed at Normandy and then worked up to Arnhem…”

I paused. I had never met an actual Normandy beach survivor before. Saving Private Ryan had come out the year before and I had that graphic image in my mind. He suddenly took the form of a superhero. Or a god. I asked him if he’d mind telling me about it. He didn’t seem bothered or reluctant; it was simply part of his life. Like asking him what brand his first car was or where did he learn to swim.

“I landed in the second wave of Higgins Boats,” he said. “Half my battalion had already landed and fought their way to the cliffs. We followed behind by about twenty minutes.”

He was rather jovial as he spoke, so far in the story he hadn’t touched upon anything that hurt him. He told me he was seasick and throwing up before they landed. Even before the door dropped, the bullets were bouncing off. They knew the first guys were going to be hit. He was about halfway back in the crowded vessel.

The door dropped and hell unleashed its worst. We’ve seen the movies and heard the stories. I won’t recount them here because it’s not my tale to tell.

He was still not very emotional at this point and telling the story rather matter-of-factly. But then he came to the part that apparently still haunts him. He slowed down a bit and cleared his throat. He told me about the cliffs.

His mission –and that of his battalion- was to scale the great cliffs at Normandy and somehow, some way take out the massive German machine gun nests at the top. They were heavily fortified and deemed almost impenetrable. The Allie plan was simply to thro enough men at them that they would somehow over run them.

Paul was in the second wave.

The first wave was ¾ of the way up by the time he got there. That part had been easy. It was getting near the top that caused the problems. Paul was about half way up himself when the first body fell. The half of his battalion that had arrived earlier had begun to reach the top, and the Germans were picking them off like target practice. He was trying to scale the cliffs on ropes while avoiding the bodies of his fallen fellow soldiers as they hurled past him, missing him by mere inches. It was here that he coughed a little, and cleared his throat. It was here that the slightest tears formed in the corner of his eyes.

This was the hard part. He saw them coming. Sometimes they screamed. Most of the time they were already dead from the gunshots and they were simply falling. He recognized faces. He remembered other, far more pleasant days.

He made the climb and by days end, his group had secured the cliffs. It was on to Arnhem and eventually victory.

But that day…

I can’t imagine. I think it would be obscene of me to try. He was about twenty years old at the time. When I was twenty I was working in a factory, driving a Camaro and my only worry was finding a date for the weekend. His was literally surviving one more day.

I don’t know how a man lives all his life with the images of his friends hurtling past him, either already dead or on their way. I don’t know how he became the jovial, successful, gracious man I met that night. Perhaps the fact that we met at a Bible study and he was a man of faith holds the obvious answer.

Today is June 6. D-Day. If not for men who had sacrificed their youth, and who carried those memories for these 71 years, we’d be in a very different world right now. Battles are large and we see them on a grand scale. But every battle was fought by individual soldiers who fought separate little battles within the large ones. Battles just to survive, and later…to forget. Or at least to accept and move forward.

To those men from D-Day who remain. Thank you. I cannot imagine what you endured. Watching “Saving Private Ryan” doesn’t bring me the slightest bit closer to understanding it. I can only say Thanks.