I have now been to Paris.
I will write a long, drawling, comprehensive, totally biased opinion of my time here once we have finished soaking it all in...and by that, I mean eating as many croissants and crepes as we can find.
Today, though...today was an experience all its own, and it deserves an entry all its own.
Today we traveled by van to the coast of France, to the beaches, to the place where the scars of war still mark the ground and the buildings and the atmosphere.
There are many such places in Europe. Perhaps the rich history is why I love it so much.
But this place, these beaches and batteries and outposts and cliffs and harbors and cemeteries...
They have a heartbeat.
They have weight.
They take your breath away with their combination of unassuming country-side and grand monuments of heroism.
Our first stop was Pointe de Loc, the cliffs that were scaled by 225 American army rangers, sent to capture a heavily fortified German outpost on D-Day, June 1944. Looking down, from the German outpost edge...seeing the drop...understanding that those men climbed those cliffs, took that outpost, and defended it against great counter attack...hearing that they were a band of only 90 when reinforcements arrived...the wind coming up off the ocean wasn't as breathtaking as the knowledge of the courage and sacrifices made there.
Then down to Omaha beach, the landing place of the American forces on D-Day. It seemed an almost sacred place to us. Families were walking on the beach, frolicking at the edge of the cold water, laughing and talking as all people do on a beach.
But it isn't just a beach. I could picture the planes flying overhead, the parachutes, the boats, the soldiers...I could see them in my mind, and my heart beat hard and loud as I grasped how far they had to traverse the sand, and after that, steep, fortified hills. I had to stifle the urge to ask the people to stop walking on the sand. So much bravery. So much sacrifice. So much pain. So much that was won because of it all.
We saw Gold beach as well, and a German battery that remains mostly intact. All of it...every thing, was sobering and breathtaking.
But...the Normandy National Cemetery...it left words rising in my ears, to the beat of my heart...
It's beautifully landscaped, even the parking lot and the entrance and the surrounding area. A lovely walk down a tree-lined path...and then you round a corner.
So many white crosses. Over 9 thousand American soldiers, buried there after the D-Day invasions and subsequent months of war. It isn't even the largest American cemetery in France...but the sheer volume of rows of white crosses...I stood, hand on my throat, choking back tears.
I don't have to imagine what it feels like to lose your family member overseas. To not get to say goodbye. To just feel...robbed.
And I swear, I could feel the pain of every mother, father, brother, sister, son, daughter...everyone who loved a person buried in that place...I ached for them. I understood what this place must represent to their families. And so I tried hard to honor them, to take the time to remember what they had sacrificed.
The words kept beating like a drum in my head as we made our way through the museum there, filled with pictures and quotes and information. All the words I have said...they don't carry the weight of words spoken and written by those who were there.
So I will share a few.
"It all came down to this brief day of battle on the coast of Normandy, and, for so many of them, it all ended. For the rest of us, what has been since has not been the same." Captain Charles Cawthon
"You can manufacture weapons. You can buy ammunition. But you can't buy valor, and you can't pull heroes off an assembly line." Sergeant Ellery
"If ever proof was needed that we fought for a cause and not for conquest, it could be found in these cemeteries. Here was our only conquest...all we asked...soil in which to bury our gallant dead." General Mark W. Clark
"And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons, wheresoever they may be." FDR
"Some must die so others might live." Winston Churchill
If you've ever been to a cemetery like this one, that holds the bodies of so many courageous, mostly YOUNG men and women...I hope that you can understand the weight. I felt honored to be allowed to visit their graves, and sobered with the thought of all that had been lost...
We take it for granted, the pain and struggle of the past that bought for us so much freedom and peace. We don't remember it every day. Sometimes we don't even KNOW about it.
But today...today I remembered. And I will never forget the words that clambered inside me, rising to the surface with my tears, demanding to be heard.
"Freedom. Is. Not. Free."
It isn't something we deserve because we are...you fill in the blank...It was earned for us. It was sacrificed for, bled for, died for. It was grieved for, and the depth of that grief should never be forgotten.
It was paid for, for all of us. And we should remember.
Freedom. Is. Not. Free.
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