Hey everybody! I’m really sorry I
didn’t get a chance to finish my blog on the trip, and once I got home I was
completely swamped with school work and the usual summer excitement. But I plan
on making up for it now and I’ll try to finish off my journal at least. If it's
okay with you all, I’m just going to write it as if I were actually there now,
that way I can hopefully be a little more specific on the actual happenings and
it will make a little bit more sense.
Lets see, when I last left off we were
in Normandy:
Sunday, June 10th
Yesterday we drove up and along the
coast to “Utah beach” one of the two beaches (the other was code named “Omaha”)
that our fellow countrymen were in charge of attacking and securing. It was one of the five overall beaches along
the coast of France that were attacked by a combination of British, American,
and Canadian troops, on that fateful day June 6th 1944. It is one of
the few places outside of the U.S. that I actually feel proud to be an
American. Where there is a French flag, there is also a set of American,
British and Canadian flags flying right beside it, in honor of the Allied
powers fighting together as a single entity, against what they knew to be
wrong.
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| Omaha beach |
After our quick jaunt through town
we walked down along Omaha beach, where just 68 years ago our fellow Americans
had fought and died to protect their countries freedom and that of humanity
worldwide. It seemed fitting that after this, we visited the American Memorial
grave yard that stood atop a grassy hill above the white sandy beaches looking
out to sea, where a German bunker had once stood.
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| Omaha beach |
Walking
through row upon row of white marble crosses and stars engraved with countless
names of fallen heroes, and seeing hundreds and hundreds of bare pillars of marble
scattered throughout, where nameless victims of war lay. To even think about
the sheer number of lives lost was mind-bogglingly incomprehensible. Gazing
ahead, through the drizzling rain to stare at the seemingly endless sea of
white and green that rose and fell like waves on the small mounds of earth, it
made me wonder, doesn’t there have to be a better way? We have to realize that we can not continue
doing this to each other for ever. 