Today Normandy is a beautiful quiet and quant countryside with sleepy little villages. It is quite the contrast from the bustling streets of London. It is hard to imagine the destruction that was levied here nearly 70 years ago. Pictures and movies like Saving Private Ryan seem not only from another time, but also a completely different world. Omaha beach, in particular, was an area of intense fighting for the Americans unlike the relative ease of Utah beach to the west. However, my experience between them was vastly different. The emotion that ran through me as I looked out at Utah Beach into the English Channel was intense. I did not realize that the 4th Infantry Division, a division that has a long history and whom I served with during the Iraq War had been the first to fight to secure the Utah beachhead. With all of the monuments and the museum it felt like a solemn place. I thought about the young men who gave their lives on June 6, 1944, and I couldn’t help but think of my own friends who gave the ultimate sacrifice in the Iraq War. Even though it was solemn for me, it felt appropriately beautiful and peaceful.
In contrast, Omaha beach, the bloodiest conflict for the Allies on D-Day felt very different. Today there stands a monument and sculpture to the Americans who gave their lives on the beach, but it is far from what Ernie Pyle describe as a “shoreline museum of carnage.” Perhaps, I was expecting more, but besides the monuments and a few bunkers there are hardly any remnants of the intense battle fought there. Instead, it has become a resort town, where many people come to vacation and play on the beach. I still can’t decide whether it’s appropriate or disrespectful to the thousands who gave their lives on those beaches. After all, they fought for each other, not necessarily to liberate France or end Fascism.
Near Omaha Beach is the American Military Cemetery. It is a display of youthful vibrancy and perhaps arrogance. It really is a beautiful cemetery, at least the part that we were allowed to walk on by the powers that be. It was strange that in a place so grand, the graves were so simple. A Christian Cross or Jewish Star of David stood to denote the religion of the fallen. Inscribed on each was the rank and name of the individual, the unit in which they served, their date of death, and the state from which they entered service. In contrast the British cemetery felt so much less grand, but so much more personal. In addition to the information the Americans had, the British put the age of the fallen and the option of a quote from the family. One of the most touching to me was of a 27-year-old British soldier that read: “He gave the greatest gift of all, his own unfinished life.” The scale of World War II forces us to talk in terms of abstract numbers, and as result it dehumanizes the conflict. But here in Bayeux lies Private E.W. Burlington, age 27, and his fellow soldiers and sailors whose stories we know nothing about. May they rest in peace and may we never forget their memory as people in a terrible conflict.