This is going to be an emotionally-charged piece which will probably not make sense and jump from here to there as I try to clear my thoughts, but it is still something I needed to write.
Every year on the 6th of June, I turn on the TV, start up the DVD player, and watch the first and second episodes of Band of Brothers. And every year as I see their faces, the word runs through my head again and again: dead, dead, dead. Some of them had the good grace and fortune to die peacefully in their old age; others would die just fifteen minutes later. The list is always growing longer. My brother’s favourite soldier, Bill Guaranere, died March 8 this year. My own, Richard Winters, died three years ago. There are an estimated 1200 Normandy veterans still alive, most if not all older than ninety, and soon they too will pass beyond the field of living memory. Already people forget them; before I came along I’m fairly certain none of my friends even understood what D-Day was, let alone when it happened.
Personally, I have no connection whatsoever to those men who stormed those beaches. I don’t know any veterans, and I will probably never know any. But when I watch those sweeping shots of C-47s heading towards France, those clouds lit up with what is certainly not lightning, I always start crying, because it has everything to do with me, and you, and them. The significance of D-Day is often overstated, but it was important nonetheless, the opening up of the second front that Stalin had demanded for so long and that signaled the beginning of the end that Churchill had once spoken of. If D-Day had not succeeded, who’s to say what might have happened? but the one thing for sure is that even more millions of people would have died, and the war would have dragged on. If those boys – some no older than me – hadn’t fought their hearts out I, many other people, possibly a whole race, might not even be here today.
You’ll often hear people deriding the need for history. What’s the point of remembering, they’ll ask, something that happened seventy years ago? What’s the point of all these memorials and ceremonies and thinking? The past is the past and there’s no point looking back. We’ve got to focus on the future. And they’re right; the future is important. But anyone who thinks that the past isn’t needs to watch the veterans, streaming back to Normandy for what might possibly be their last time. Kneeling down at friends’ graves, bowing their heads in front of the pristine white crosses. Needs to see the sacrifices that both they and the people no longer there have made. Needs to realise how important remembering is, if only to tell us how we came here. Because that’s what history’s about, isn’t it; it’s our story, the chronicle of humanity, and respecting those who guided us.
It’s impossible to truly imagine what those wee hours of the morning were like. The silence of the shots of the paratroopers pre-take off, the pushing and pulling into the planes, the droning of the engines. They must have known that they were going to their doom, or at least that they’d never see some of their friends again. The steady rocking of the boats, the tension gnawing at their hearts. The waiting, more than anything, is the most horrifying thing about D-Day. The repeated stops and starts, never knowing when you’re going to go into battle, never quite knowing when that red light is going to flick on or when you’re going to land. Just sitting in that boat or in that plane and having to go towards death bravely, having to – one might say – soldier on.
What Band of Brothers did so well was juxtapose the silent nighttime, with sudden flashes of terror and bursts of machine gun fire cutting deep into what could have been any peaceful French countryside. And doing all of this fighting without knowing where any of your friends are (90% of the unit still not found, paratroopers scattered all across Normandy) – just you and your gun and that ridiculous cricket. Creeping around in the darkness stiffening every time you hear boots crunching on ground. Whispering ‘flash’ and dreading no reply. Sitting here in a comfortable chair with nothing but the hum of the electronic fan and the ticking of the clock I couldn’t imagine how it really was, but those men who fought I have nothing but respect and love for them.
As I mentioned before, this post is just one big emotional wreck while I try to find a proper way to express my gratitude and my emotions for D-Day, and everything that came after. I talked a lot about the paratroopers because they were the point from which I was thrown fully into my love for the arts. But the same is true of the men down on the beaches running directly into the line of fire, not only because they had nowhere else to go, but in a sense because they were brave enough to. I know that these men would never think of themselves as heroes, only boys sent to fight and die whether it was a cause they believed in or not. But I count each and every single one of them as my inspirations and as my heroes.
I watch Day of Days every year because it was the first thing I ever saw that fully rammed home the weight and the importance of 6 June 1944. It’s a little tribute, paltry as compared to what they gave, and it doesn’t really do anything, but it’s my tribute nevertheless. My way of remembering things as best as I can. On June 6, 2044, I hope to be one of the people able to stand at the graves of the soldiers, thanking them for all they have done. But for now, I will be content watching that last shot of Currahee: the hundreds of planes in the sky, the dozens of boats in the waters, the new world stepping forth to the rescue and liberation of the old.
the grumpy bulldog 