On June 6, patriotic Americans will remember those brave young men who gave their last measure of devotion to this country. This is the day which began the Normandy Landing initiating the Western Allied effort to liberate mainland Europe from Nazi occupation during World War II. However, many other invasions and operations had a designated D-Day, both before and after that operation.
I was in Europe for the 25th anniversary for the Normandy invasion. Like most Americans attending the memorial we visited the cemeteries, the largest of which contains the remains of 9,387 American military dead. At that time, I had a shadow of vision in one eye and it was interesting to see older couples and some mothers and children being led by a military escort with a map to a grave in the cemetery, where most of them fell down beside the grave weeping. This was their first contact with the fallen hero since being notified of his death. FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.
My most remarkable memory of recent wars, even more acute than my own personal experience, I was asked by the governor of the state and the state adjutant general, General Kapus Waynick (former ambassador to Guatemala) to attend a veterans meeting in San Antonio, Texas. There were four 100% disabled veterans flying down in the governors plane (a propeller WWII relic) piloted by a retired Air Force colonel. I remember very well the storms we encountered on the trip to Texas. We stayed in a hotel near the Alamo and I shared a room with a most remarkable veteran. He was a very devote Christian gentleman and one night after our prayer together he said, “I am going to share something with you that I have never shared with another living human being.” I had already determined from his posture and movements that he was in constant pain and a very sick man. He said, after the Normandy invasion, “I was subjected to an explosion which left me just a mass of physical and neurological metabolism. Kept alive in a field hospital, until transferred to an American army facility, no one kept from me the fact that I was going to die. My parents were too old and depleted in health to come to the hospital. There was no other family member alive who could come and give any comfort.”
He said one night, he knew that death was near, because all of a sudden, his body became enveloped in an extreme coldness. He said, “I DIED.” He said, “Instantly there was a warmth, peace, happiness, and a beauty which no mind can describe. My soul was blessed with the splendor of heaven. I saw the beauty beyond compare and the face of our blessed Lord, but all of a sudden deep in my soul came the thought, not yet, not yet. And I was restored back to life.” He said, “I have seen it, I know it is real. In a few weeks, the army arranged for me to be transported to my home several hundred miles away and I had the satisfaction of seeing the happiness of my parents.” FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.
At the beginning of WWII, I was with my parents when they visited a distant cousin who, the young son of their old age, had just died in Europe. The father, a cousin of my father, a former banker, had lost everything in the Great Depression. He was in his mid 60’s but his second wife was in her early 40’s and they had one son. The only time I ever saw the son was just before he left for Europe after a few weeks of basic training. He was “sweet on” one of my cousins (my cousin Rose, now buried with her Air Force colonel husband in Arlington), went to our church before he left, he was only 17, very good looking, blond, in his uniform, he lasted 2 weeks after he arrived in Europe and is buried on that foreign soil. I was with my parents when they visited this old couple, I remember, because I was always fascinated by beautiful wood and the wood in their old house staircase etc, was beautiful beyond words. But, my parents said, they had never seen such grief. FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.
There are several military cemeteries in Europe. The one I visited had 9,387 graves and I also visited the American military cemetery in the Philippians where nearly 18,000 are buried. Arlington of course has 250,000. One is never the same after visiting a military cemetery, after visiting a VA hospital, after visiting a family where photographs and a casket flag dominate the walls because even though “life goes on”, families of veterans know that the veteran only had one life also. FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.
Preachers and churches are important. The gospel of salvation, good works of faith and Christian endeavor, the teachings of absolutes of right and wrong, the very fabric that has kept this country together and made it great are important. But not as important as veterans.
Teachers in our schools, professors in our colleges, research fellows in great institutions give us a better life, a more healthy existence. But not as important a veterans.
Laborers who build the barracks, manufacture the weapons, build the ships for christening and the planes for transportation, who are the back-bone of our economy on every level. But not as important as veterans.
Commentators who keep us informed, who try to expose and synthesize every action of government, shed light on the politicians and bureaucrat who have taken an oath for integrity. But not as important as veterans.
Entertainers, celebrities, TV personalities, comedians who can make you laugh, risk their lives and their possessions visiting the front lines on battlefronts all over the world attempting to bring some laughter, some memories of home, some appreciation for their gallantry, to those who made this sacrifice of time and talent. But not as important as veterans.
The contentment, the splendor, whatever joy you have in your existence has been paid for by those willing to defend YOUR country. The American lifestyle, any enjoyment in your existence did not just happen, it has a costly history. Only those who have seen the frozen bodies of their comrades stacked like cord wood, as was the case around the Chosin Reservoir in South Korea, know the true meaning of war. Only a medical officer who has heard the screams of burn victims in an army hospital knows the true meaning of war. Only when you have seen the destruction of a city, the cries of a family after their home and possessions were destroyed, will you realize the importance of peace.
“There is a peace that thrills the heart,
the veterans knowledge that he has done his part.
The country is waning, may slip and fall,
at the poles, at the plow, uniform in the closet still ready for the call.”
- Dr. Morris
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