The Lessons of Cemeteries

On our last day in Normandy, we visited the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, where 9,387 of our servicemen and women are buried. Another 1,557 are listed on the Walls of the Missing.

Most of these soldiers gave their lives in the D-Day invasion and subsequent battles.

Including Thomas J. Sullivan above. This was the first grave I happened to look at. Pvt. Sullivan would have been in the first wave of the Utah Beach landing.

The cemetery is located on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach, the D-day site where so many American soldiers lost their lives. 

We saw the grave of Theodore F. Rosenbaum. He was a 2nd Lt, in the 358th Regiment of the 90th Division, John's dad's Regiment. Lt. Rosenbaum was awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.

In one of John's dad's (John) letters, he says that his best friend in the Army was killed. He didn't describe the circumstances or give his friend's name (he couldn't reveal that information). But a few years ago, we found the below letter in John's papers and figure there's a good chance this is his friend.

The Normandy Visitors Center has computer terminals where you can look up any person buried in a military cemetery. 

Staff Sgt. Kvenmoen is buried in Epinal, in the northeast part of France. 

We will hope to pay our respects on another trip.

Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt Jr., son of President Teddy Roosevelt, fought heroically in World War I and II. He helped coordinate the D-Day invasion and then asked to accompany his men, even though he needed a cane to walk because of his WWI injury and he was 56. At first, his commanding officers said no, but he persisted. After Roosevelt and his men were blown a mile off course of their Utah Beach landing target due to strong currents, he reassessed the situation and said, "We'll start the war from right here." Roosevelt was the only general in the first wave on D-Day. He raised the men's morale through his presence and good humor, telling stories of his father and reciting poetry during the invasion. Roosevelt died in Normandy about a month later of a heart attack. 

When 5-star General Omar Bradley was asked to name the most heroic act of the war, he said, "Theodore Roosevelt on Utah Beach." Roosevelt's son Quentin was part of the invasion on Omaha Beach. They are the only father and son who took part in the D-Day invasion. Roosevelt is buried next to his brother, also named Quentin, who was killed in WWI.

When we were leaving Orglandes a couple of days ago, where John's dad's regiment was, we passed a high wall. We stopped to see what was on the other side of the wall. 

It was a German war cemetery. 

There are over 10,000 German soldiers buried here. This cemetery contains more graves than Normandy.

But there are far fewer headstones as sometimes six names would be on each stone, three on each side.

We wonder about the men buried here. Some were probably committed Nazis. Others, unwilling German conscripts. Like all of us, children of God.

There are so many things to think about, so many lessons from visiting these places.

Above is a memorial on the wall of the Bayeux cathedral, memorializing the French who died in concentration camps. I wonder what the dead would say to us. Maybe things we already know.

At the Normandy Visitors Center, the narrator of a film described the stakes of the D-Day invasion:
"The fate of the free world--the entire free world--rested on their very young shoulders."