Oddball
Unobtanium Member
"I remember sitting alongside a returning G.I. on the cliffs where he had landed on D-Day 40 years earlier. He had been with the 16th Infantry Regiment and in the eye of the storm. He had been 18 years old on D-Day. Never in action before. It was just the two of us and he talked for some time. He started unknowingly, as all old soldiers do, with the 'memories' that he had recounted endless times at home. Partly truth, partly what he had read after the war, partly what he thought people wanted to hear. Then he stopped speaking. He took a deep breath and began to cry. I cried too. We were both on that beach in our minds, but his memory was real."
"Between the sobs," Tonie continued, "he told me what had happened -- men shot down all around him, the blood red color of the sea, the bodies in the waves, the noise, the chaos ... Eventually he was done. Over 40 years of suppressed memories had poured out in just a few minutes. As gently as I could I asked him, 'Why did you all go on after all that bloodshed?' He replied, 'It was a job that had to be done... That's it. You do what you have to do,' and we sat there in silence."
D-Day Anniversary: Visiting The Normandy Beaches Today - International Business Times