D-Day

by Richard Seifried

Signal Hill Musings

December, 2003

Usually, we who are authors and poets write about visual experiences. Those of us who create music, like my dear friend John Two-Hawks, are exceptions. But, most of us write about what we see or feel, not hear.

I am sitting out on our screen-enclosed deck, overlooking the forest and meadow-clad hills called the Ozark Mountains.

Of course, as many of us are (whether we admit it or not), I am partially deaf, missing the subtle singings, buzzings, and calls of the natural world around us. Thank goodness, due to a pair of old, outdated hearing aids, the wonderful sighing of our pine trees, needles rushing in the wind, is discernible. So is the tinkling of our fountains. Far off, the crows are conversing, way over on the next ridge.

My world is pretty quiet right now. Just moments ago, when I first came outside, the delightful music of our “wild canaries,” goldfinches, filled the air. A blue bird, sitting in one of our pine trees, was announcing his territorial rights to our south slope. If I had been at our bedroom door, I could have heard the whirring busyness of one of our ruby-throated hummingbirds.  Such music is another reason why Signal Hill is such a joy to Jean and me.

Though lately I have been writing almost exclusively about our natural world, I am going to make this June message an exception. The contents are of the utmost relevance, the subject more symbolic than any other 20th century human experience that I can think of. In simple brevity, the following tells us that we must never forget what our fellow citizens, Americans and otherwise, have done for us.

But for a slight warp in time, a mere tick in the eternal clock, the teller could have been you or I or a close loved one.

(Note: the following entry was written long before my Musings, sometime back in the early nineties.)

D-DAY, THE SIXTH OF JUNE, 1944

For weeks I have been trying to recall what I was doing when I heard about the invasion of Normandy. I just don’t remember.

I asked my wife and she doesn’t remember either. She was a little girl, but I was sixteen and should know how I heard the news. Too many invasion rumors. Too many invasions: North Africa, Sicily, Anzio, and the Dieppe Raid of 1942. I remember that one. Everyone thought that attack was the beginning of the invasion of “Fortress Europe.”

I do know something about the Normandy Invasion that isn’t commonly known. Around fifteen or twenty years ago, I was participating in a wine-tasting at a Polish church in Dayton, Ohio. Our Polish people knew how to taste wine; they used beer for chasers!

We were all having a wonderful time laughing, eating cheese, and enjoying the polka music. Our table was long and narrow, seating perhaps twenty people. Across from us sat the wife, daughter, and son-in-law of the gentleman who sat at my left. He was around sixty years old.

“Were you in the war?” he asked, meaning WWII.

“Well, the Korean War,” I replied, quite surprised at the question.

“Did you see any action?”

“Yes.” I didn’t elaborate. The gentleman seemed relieved at my response.

“So did I.  I went in on Omaha Beach, the Normandy Invasion, you know.” I was impressed.

Across the table the man’s wife bit her lower lip and nudged her daughter.

“Yes,” he went on, “that was quite an experience.”

For nearly twenty minutes, my table neighbor told me about the greatest naval invasion the world has ever seen. Soldiers crammed into ships in cold, rainy weather. Thousands of landing craft bobbed about in the choppy seas, loaded with seasick troops. Destroyers, cruisers, all types of warships were jamming the embarkation harbors, hiding from the German navy. He told of the tank traps on the beaches, and the minefields, barbed wire, and other obstructions. I visualized the horrible gunfire raking the shore, striking the young Americans as they floundered through the surf.

At some point, I looked away to find that our section of the table was empty except for the two of us. His family had fled rather than experience again the terror he was relating. So had all the others.

His eyes were locked on mine, but my new friend was back in Normandy, reliving the fear, smells, and sounds that only a combat veteran can experience and relate.

Exhausted, running out of graphic phrases, he paused, then said, “I was in the second wave. Not the first. We saw it and became a part of it.  Have you seen the old movie The Longest Day?”

I admitted that I had.

“Well, that’s the way it was. The movie is pretty good.”

The survivor of Omaha Beach once again looked me directly in the eyes. “There is one thing wrong with the movie.” He was sweating profusely, lips trembling. “When we, the second wave, hit the beach, we ran for the high ground. As we ran, our feet seldom touched the sand. You see, the whole beach was covered with the bodies of dead Americans.  They never told the people back home that detail. Never did. Never told them.”

My friend didn’t say anything more.  Frankly, he didn’t need to.  The heroism and sacrifice of D-Day are legendary, and it is not an exaggeration to suggest that the entire world owes a huge debt of gratitude to the men (and women) who gave so much to that invasion.

Of course, a few years later, the movie Saving Private Ryan tried to portray the horror of that day, including a “beach covered with the bodies of dead Americans.”  Still, nothing compares to hearing the story from a participant — a hero and a patriot — from one old soldier to another.

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