Bayeux
I was the first to get hurt on the trip. Five feet out of our Bayeux hotel my ankle just gave out and twisted. While everyone went to explore, Chris Herrel and Michele Magoteaux stayed in with me. Our accompanying grad student, Lauren, took me to the pharmacy and I got a first hand view of the medical system.
The Musee du Debarquement de Utah Beach was surprising because it contained a Native American case about the Comanche code talkers. The Comanche code talkers were a group of Native Americans who mixed coding and the Comanche language into cryptic messages for the Americans. It was the only code to not be broken. None of the museums to this date had discussed other races so this was a shock especially being Native myself. The first code from Utah Beach on June 6, 1944 was a Comanche transmission that “the landing is going well” or “Tsaaku nunnuwee.”
We went to the American cemetery. I was going to see my one great uncle’s tombstone that resides in the cemetery. His name is Julio Romero.
He was a second division, 23rd regiment infantry soldier and died on July 27, 1944. It was a coincidence that another WWII study tour student, Chris Herrel, had his great great uncle buried there and was in the same regiment as Julio. One looming question is why only one of my great uncles was buried at Normandy and the other was sent back (Epimenio died the same month in battle.) We learned at the museum it was at the wishes of the next of kin, but my grandmother says her family was alerted of both deaths at the same time so it doesn’t make sense why one was sent home. I don’t know if I can talk too much about my great uncle’s death. It is still a very emotional matter for my family. I sent a photo of Julio’s tomb stone to my mother and she almost cried. I was very fortunate to get into this program and to get a scholarship to be able to see my family but I felt like the cemetery was not enough. While taking a diversity art class at Ohio State I saw a boot installation from an artist that had all the military boots with dog tags and photos of the soldiers or marines. I think it would have been nice to have the grave stones being more personal or individualized to show the individual cost. It personally feels like the cemetery neglects the pain and toil of Americans during the war. We look at Britain and they were bombed during the Blitz, France was occupied by the Germans, and the Germans lost the war, but for America it seems like they came in to save the day and the American population did not have a terrible experience. My family had a bad experience and it has affected us till this day. I do not feel comfortable sharing everything on a public blog, but this was very impactful for me. The next day the group went to see a movie with screens surrounding the room. After seeing my uncle’s grave the previous day I kept thinking that he could be in the videos of the battles and could have been seeing the horrors. Everything felt more real since it could have been my family, my great uncles.
Paris
In the Musee de l’armee, the integration of different nationalities and races within the French army was the stand-out issue when compared to race-issues from America and World War II. Moroccan soldiers fought for France during World War II and for many soldier’s this was the first time they had seen the empires’ main land. Germany had previous colonial African interests and had fought against the French for Morocco in the late 19th century. Had Germany had a more successful or prioritization of colonial Africa, would being Aryan matter less? In my book report on Soldiers of Destruction by Charles Sydnor, the SS Totenkompfdivision fired on surrendering Moroccan soldiers because of their race, but accepted surrender from white French soldiers. If Germany had a stronger colonial presence and citizenship as did France then there might have been a change in events but to what extent we shall never know. It is just a topic I never considered until this museum.