Is There Anything Worth Dying For?

On this Memorial Day 2009 I am here to say that I am so glad that throughout the history of our nation, there have been men and women who believed that there was some cause or belief important enough to be worth their life to defend.

Let me tell you a story about my experience on the beaches of Normandy, France. No, it wasn't that terrible day June 6, 1944 when there was so much carnage and loss of life. It was many years later in the early '80s when I had the opportunity to visit both Omaha and Utah beaches as a tourist. One of the images indelibly printed on my memory is the distance from the water to where the flat sandy beaches turn to dunes and bluffs. Imagine as I did those many years ago that the enemy is entrenched in bunkers and firing all kinds of ordinance at you as you disembark completely sea-sick from the landing craft. You have at least a quarter mile and perhaps more of open beach to cover before there is any foliage or anything to hide behind. It is no wonder that in the initial hours of that assault there were thousands of American dead and wounded.

In Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France, there is an American Cemetery that entombs the bodies of 9,387 American dead. I stood in that cemetery and looked out over the very same stretch of beach that many of those solders breathed their last breath and it was a very powerful moment which to this very day and even this moment as I write elicits an emotional response which I have to struggle to control.

I don't have any family, that I'm aware of, that has died in one of this countries conflicts but if I did, I would have been proud of them and my relationship to them.
Look! This guy was from Oregon! If you have a member of your family that has paid the ultimate sacrifice for this nation, I salute them and hope that you'll remember them today and honor their sacrifice.

There was no such thing as digital images when I visited this place but I took similar pictures and since there was permission to use attached to these images I chose to go ahead and use them instead of scanning the poor quality images that I have. This is a soldier that was Jewish.I don't remember how many of the graves have this inscription but this is the marker for bodies that weren't identifiable. There are a number of them. I saw several.

Please don't just look at this day as another day to stay home from work, the cost of freedom in blood and treasure is just too great to casually dismiss it. I hope that you'll click on the links and pictures. The link takes you to a wikipedia article which is pregnant with information regarding the cemetary and the images will enlarge to help you get a better vision of what they are about.