Glory?

9000 men died on the beaches of Normandy by Jun 6^th all because some upper level officer decided that it would be better to sacrifice thousands of men rather than a few tanks, and the goddamn captains of the landing craft couldn’t find the section of beach they were supposed to hit. Hundreds of my friends, men I had trained with, and people I had known before the war succumbed to the bombardment of bullets that rained down from the heavily fortified bunkers just because some General didn’t want to risk the tanks in the rough water.

D-day wasn’t a great, we weren’t celebrating the fact that we had gained a foothold in France; we were mourning the loss of many comrades whose only crimes were to be in the wrong place at the worst time.

As my landing craft left the USS LST-73 we all sat in a nervous silence. Our ears still rang from the unrelenting bombardment that the Allied ships had emptied upon the beach, now it was our turn to go in. Bullets whizzed over our heads as our landing craft was grounded on the beach. The front came down and almost immediately half of the men with me were ripped apart by the German machine guns. The water ran red with blood as I heaved myself over the side of that metal deathtrap. Two more men climbed up onto the side and managed to heave their legs over when they were engulfed in a ball of fire. The landing craft was blown out of the water. Limbs flew in every direction and shrapnel cut into my back and legs, but I kept struggling towards that damned beach wishing all of this would just end. Bodies lay lifeless in the sand and just below the surface of the water. The wounded struggled up the beach as the tide slowly closed in on them. I managed to crawl my way behind some cover next to the only two guys who had managed to escape the landing craft unharmed. I watched as they traded off positions, one reloading as the other fired, and vice versa.

I later learned that John and Lewis had been the two men exchanging rounds with the Germans. I watched in horror as John lifted his head for one second only to have a round smash through his helmet, killing him instantly. Lewis kept firing at the Germans, unaware as to what had just happened to his best friend. Lewis finished his clip, took cover to reload, noticed John lying in the sand, and just stared in horror at what used to be Johns head. The bullet had entered through the back of John’s head and ripped through his face. A gaping hole now replaced what had once been John’s cheek.

Tears in his eyes, Lewis grabbed his rife and ran up the beach firing at the German positions. A machine gun round grazed his shoulder but he kept going, a mortar exploded no more that twenty feet ahead of him and shrapnel peppered his front, but he kept going. Lewis kept running up that beach, tears in his eyes, until another machine gun round tore through his kneecap. Lewis was a good man; I had known him during basic training. He didn’t deserve to die on that godforsaken beach and neither did John, but they did. Their lives were taken from them by an evil dictator whom we all wanted a shot at killing. Lewis fell to the ground and kept firing his BAR until the click of an empty magazine told him that his gun was empty. He then pulled his Colt out of his holster and tried to squeeze off a few rounds, but before he got the chance another round ripped open his chest. If only we had had those Shermans.

I never knew Lewis as well as John did. I never really got close to anyone in my company. Friends are a liability in war; they make you take unnecessary risks to protect them. Veterans had warned me of this, they told me not to make friends with anyone because eventually, no matter what you do, either you’re going to have to watch them die or their going to have to watch you die.