They Remember, Too

A week ago I was standing in the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach in Normandy and it is that experience that makes today's Memorial Day celebrations so much more meaningful to me than ever before.

In 1944, France granted perpetual concessions to 174 acres bordering the beach known during the war as Omaha Beach, one of the sites of the Allied invasion of Normandy. This land holds the graves of 9,386 Americans killed during the invasion.

We entered the cemetery at the semicircular garden located at the top of the picture above.  This garden is known as the Garden of the Missing.

The garden is surrounded by walls that contain the names of 1,557 men who died in the Normandy campaign but whose bodies could not be located.

A large inscription is chiseled into the wall at the center of the garden....

To these we owe the highest resolve 
that the cause for which they died shall live.

We left the Garden of the Missing and climbed the stairs into a beautiful colonnade.

Each end of the colonnade contained an area with maps and narrative explaining the military operations of the D-day invasion.

Rising up in the center of the colonnade is a statue entitled The Spirit of American Youth Rising From the Waters. There were about 120 Americans in our group and we gathered at the foot of this statue for a short ceremony of remembrance.  The National Anthem was played and we sang the words that became forever more dear in that moment.  As we sang I realized that many of the French people visiting the cemetery that day had stopped and were watching us as we sang.  Some of them recorded us on iPads and phones and stood in silent respect until our ceremony was complete. It was then that I began to notice the other visitors in the cemetery... French students of every age in school groups learning and experiencing the history of the United States coming to the aid of France.  I began to listen to their teachers and, although I couldn't translate what they were saying, I knew that the history, significance, and sacrifice of the D-day invasion was being kept alive.  They remember, too.

After Taps was played, each member of our group was given a rose to lay at the grave of a brave American.  Theodore Roosevelt Jr., a recipient of the Medal of Honor, is buried there and his brother, Quentin Roosevelt who was killed in World War I, was moved there to lie beside his brother. Preston and Robert Niland, upon whose lives the movie Saving Private Ryan was based, are buried there also. 

 But I laid my rose at the grave of a Louisiana boy in memory of all the boys that left happy lives in our state to fight with astounding courage on a foreign beach for a great cause that ultimately saved the world.

As I was leaving the cemetery, I saw an French  couple carrying bouquets of flowers.  I asked if I could take their picture and they agreed.  As I snapped the shot, they said over and over, "Merci, America, Merci!!" They remember, too.

When I shared this with my niece, she told me that she was touched by the number of houses in the area that flew both the French and American flags. They remember, too.

In 1944, when the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach was established, the families of the men who had died there were given the choice to bring their sons home or have them buried in the new cemetery.  Sixty percent of the families brought their sons home, a choice I probably would have made too.  But forty percent chose to bury their sons on this distant beach beside their comrades in arms- their friends, their brothers, united to this day in their mission.  And it is thanks to their families that French students on field trips, and French couples with flowers, and American tourists can come together on hallowed ground to remember, too.

"They endured everything and gave their all so that justice among nations might prevail and that mankind might enjoy freedom and inherit peace." 

Happy, Reverent Memorial Day,

Shelli