D-DAY

D-DAY
By Andy Weddington
Thursday, 06 June 2019

They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. - Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States

Great Uncle Dutch, my mom's uncle, was a soldier. 

He fought in World War I. 

More than once he was left for dead, on what was called the "dying porch," in a field hospital.

He survived. Somehow. He came home with one leg. And God knows what else he lost in that hell. 

I remember him. 

I remember his wood leg and rubber foot. 

I do not remember him ever speaking of combat. 

Clearly, I remember his powerful military honors burial in the city cemetery, Salisbury, North Carolina. The soldiers uniforms, striking colors of our flag, report of seven rifles times three in final salute, and Taps replay every once in a while. A child's memories flashed back this morning.

Great Uncle Glen, my dad's uncle, was a soldier.

He fought in World War II.

Eighteen years old, a private, he landed on Omaha Beach.

He fought throughout the war. 

He survived. He came home with both legs. But God knows what he lost during that hell.

I remember him.

He never spoke of combat to me.

In fact, I did not know he landed on Omaha Beach until after he died. That is regrettable.

He, too, is buried in Salisbury, North Carolina.

I thought of Great Uncle Glen early this morning. I remember what today would be considered an insensitive joke he told one Christmas. It wasn't bad at all. Folks just need some of the thick skin he earned. He's still on my mind. 

I think about Great Uncles Dutch and Glen in context to all the reading, documentaries, conversations with combat veterans of World War II, and thinking invested in struggling to imagine the mindset of a teenager readying to leap from a trench, jump from an airplane, or rush from a Higgins boat while under withering fire.

At Rest

10 x 8 in. oil on board

Artist: Andy Weddington

Imagine I cannot. Giants! 

My uniformed service pales in comparison because words and maps and imagination, however descriptive, is not reality.  

But there is an imaginable certainty about battle: Men (and women), remarkable they are, facing death find deep within themselves the courage to do what must be done; for themselves, for their brothers. Duty, we call it.   

For the fight by men and women such as them, America and much of the world enjoys the conquest of liberty. 

Still we have a leg up on the rest of the world.