Part 2 of Day 4 Omaha Beach Normandy and the American Cemetery

 A Quiet Place

It's quiet here...so quiet

Standing on this hill

But if I stand here too much longer

My eyes with tears will fill

Looking down....I'm there again

On that beach....just down below

Far different.... to that morning

That I remember so

That beach....it was hell on earth

Where no man....should ever go

I remember

I was down there

I should know

Don't cry now... dear old soldier

That as many years ago

author-unknown

Nothing can prepare you for seeing all the white crosses at the American Cemetery, even if you have seen video footage or photos before.  The realization that those crosses represent lives lost.  They were just boys, sons, brothers, children, young fathers, husbands.  They went out of duty for one's country. They gave their life so that we could be free!  I wish everyone could walk the paths, see the crosses, read the stories, and see the artifacts.  It really did happen.  It wasn't just a Hollywood film or a picture in a book.  It was real.  They died on Omaha Beach.  Omaha Beach sustained the most casualties.  It was the most guarded, and the Germans were waiting for them perched on the hill where now the cemetery lies.  That da,y 2400 men lost their lives.

 “At the core, the American citizen soldiers knew the difference between right and wrong, and they didn't want to live in a world in which wrong prevailed. So, they fought and won, and we, all of us, living and yet to be born, must be forever profoundly grateful.” — Stephen Ambrose, Citizen Soldiers 

“There’s a graveyard in northern France where all the dead boys from D-Day are buried. The white crosses reach from one horizon to the other. I remember looking it over and thinking it was a forest of graves. But the rows were like this, dizzying, diagonal, perfectly straight, so it wasn’t a forest but an orchard of graves. Nothing to do with nature, unless you count human nature.” — Barbara Kingsolver

“These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.” — President Ronald Reagan, on the 40th Anniversary of D-Day