A Day at the D-Day Memorial
 

He walked with his cane to the guard rail and looked over the water and bronze figures. The water spouted in random across the black marbled shallow pool like bullets skipping on the water. The ball cap that covered his gray hair read "D-Day Veteran."
He gazed across the memorial, the newly dedicated one, the one dedicated this past Wednesday by President Bush on June 6th for the men who stormed onto Normandy Beach in France the same day in 1944. His eyes focused on the statue of the bronze soldier coming out of the water, then to the soldier already on the beach helping his fallen comrade, and then there was the bronze soldier laying face down on the beach...clutching a Holy Bible. He seemed to relive the entire war in that short moment. A nice looking older lady touched his sleeve and he seemed to come out of a trance. He looked at her lovingly and simply said, "Momma, I'm not ready to go yet...I need look a little more." She smiled and stepped aside.

A young 10 year old boy stood beside the man looking at the same statues, but surely seeing something very different. The older man looked at the young boy and hesitantly asked, "Do you know how much that packed weighed?" pointing to the backpack on the soldier helping his fallen comrade. The boy shook his head, no. "Well, they were mighty heavy...and the water was mighty deep...and well you see that thing around the middle on the belt....it was a flotation and when it filled up would turn a man so that all you saw was his feet in the air. A man would drown because he was carrying too much weight." The boy's eyes began to get large and his focus was on the soldiers. Then the man said, "See that man there on the ground, the one with the Bible....that man's belt is already deflated...that's what's hanging down." The boy fiddling with the disposable camera in his hands, looked again at the soldiers and asked, "Were you there? Did you know them?" "Yes," the man said quietly, "and I came home...many of us didn't." Both young boy and old man gazed over the memorial together never saying a word. Maybe the boy was seeing a different picture in his head now. Maybe the man was seeing something different too.

"Well, it's time for me to leave," the old man said "...I'm taking up space for others to look....it's time for me to go now."

As the man began to walk away, the young boy bashfully asked, "Can I take your picture?" The old man, a little humbled and quite proud, said, "Why, yes, I would be honored for you to take my picture....thank you..."

The boy held the camera to his eye steadied his image and took the picture of a Real American Hero. My nephew, Hunter, extended his small hand into the large hand of the D-Day Veteran and said, "Thank you. Thank you, sir."
Note: by: Mary Loose DeViney, US Coast Guard Auxiliary



Re: A Day at the D-Day Memorial
by David
on Aug 30, 2001
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This a very moving tribute.