omaha

As far as I can see. White crosses. Not just white crosses, though. White grave markers. Mostly crosses, but also the occasional Star of David. Most markers had names, but also the occasional “HERE RESTS IN HONRED GLORY A COMRADE IN ARMS KNOWN BUT TO GOD.”   

Omaha Beach is the stuff of movies and history classes. When people say, “I’m going to visit Normandy,” the immediate response is, “Are you going to Omaha, Utah, or both?” As we drive up to the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, Mirek, our oh-so-qualified tour guide, announces that we are now on American soil, that we have just entered the United States. This pronouncement is as unexpected as the quietly spontaneous cheering from all of us on the bus.    

Of course, everyone wants to hit the beach first. The path leading down to the sand is that deceptively easy walk that makes you wince inside thinking of getting back up the hill. The students get to the beach ahead of me, and many continue walking toward the water for the novelty of touching the Atlantic. Funny thing, though, soon the twos and threes have given way to individuals wandering around the beach. Friends who have been attached since February are now yards apart, looking at the sand, staring out at the horizon. The water doesn’t hold a fascination for me, Pacific Ocean snob that I am, but I walk toward it until the sand’s texture changes under my feet. 

And then I turn around.  

There. That’s what gets me. The cliffs. Those damn cliffs. I haven’t seen Saving Private Ryan, having been warned about the intensity of the opening sequence, but it doesn’t take a movie to imagine those cliffs stuffed with guns. I take several pictures, trying to capture what a soldier might have first seen, but hastily give up.  

Walking up the steep pathway, I focus on not stopping rather than what happened on the beach. The emotional part is over anyway. Now it’s on to the Memorial and Visitor Center, aesthetics I’ve seen a bunch of times before. I reach the top of the bluff and with a last, quick look at the beach turn firmly away to get my bearings. Signs give me a choice of whether to begin at the Visitor Center or the Memorial complete with a 22-foot statue, reflecting pool, and The Garden of the Missing. I decide to be ornery and choose neither. Instead, I wander in the opposite direction, lured by well-kept grounds and the promise of open space. Didn’t Mirek say there was a chapel somewhere around here? Manicured trees block my view, so I’m not exactly sure where I am, but a few more steps will bring me to an opening, and I should be able to see the chapel. 

Crosses. Grave markers really. As far as I can see.

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