Memorial Day, 2009 Monday, May, 25, 2009
by John Fischer

War is hell.

There's no way around this. It has always been this way. I used to think it was the Vietnam conflict that robbed war of its glory, but it was only the old Hollywood WWII movies that glamorized it. Steven Spielberg changed that forever in the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan—a sickeningly real depiction of the Normandy invasion at Omaha Beach that made John Wayne's movies seem like a visit to the Mickey Mouse Club set.

So this Memorial Day, I'm thinking not of the great heroes who accomplished our freedom, but of the young kid in the front row of an amphibious transport vehicle who took the first round of enemy fire in his chest before he ever got to even leave the boat or shoot his rifle. And I'm thinking of the 5,000 other men who died on the beach that day, June 6, 1944, and what they died for. I'm thinking of the senselessness of it all—a young man's noble send-off, his training, his prayers, his shaky fingers around his last smoke after throwing up on the boat (was he seasick or just scared?), the front of the boat falling away, and the first bullet ending his all-too-short story. I'm thinking of his mom and dad sitting home in perhaps another Omaha (not the beach), listening to the news and wondering how their dear Billy is doing over there.

How many times has this played itself out in just the brief history of America? And how many ways do we try and live with this? The ones who come back don't want the attention. They already feel guilty that they came back and their buddies didn't. That's why we honor the buddies today.

But how do you memorialize so many who died such horrible deaths for reasons that often amount to nothing more than the pride and arrogance of a few powerful men? You try and remember why they did it.

I'm thinking of my own peers who died in a war no one understood by reason of the number on their draft card. My name could just as easily be on that granite wall in Washington, but for a student ministerial deferment. They died for their country at a time when many in their country were spitting on their graves.

They didn't deserve that. They were not warmongers. They were just doing their duty. Their number was up. They were high school football players and neighborhood cut-ups that answered the call. They did what a nation asked them to do, even when they didn't know why. They took the bullet for everyone who didn't go, and like Able, their blood cries out from the ground.

Normandy's beaches are quiet now. Children laugh and play in the sand. Warm breezes blow. The sea has swallowed up its dead long ago, and the sands have washed away the memory, except for today. Today we try to remember.

War is hell and has taken way too many young men and women in the prime of their life. We pray that in God's mercy, heaven has them now.

I miss you, Grampa. And I wish I'd had the chance to talk to you about your service in the Pacific. I hope where you've ended up now helps you forget the hell of it all.