Remembering D-Day, 70 years later

Sometimes I forget that it all really happened — after all, it was so long ago. But for the men who were there, it was real.

The barrels of their guns were every bit as true as the stainless steel water bottle that I hold in my hand, and the English Channel's wind-blown spray was no different than the water that shoots over the sides of the boat when I go fishing.

But it still feels like a movie. It shouldn't. It all happened. And to guys just like me.

It's hard to understand this, especially as I watch those who lent the steel to the spine of the Allied armies grow old and pass away. They, like World War II as a whole, have always seemed close and far at the same time — it's the generation that I don't ever remember as being young, but whose youth will be eternally remembered because of what they did.

Most of us read about D-Day in the histories, which not only insulate us from the horror, but let the commanders' names live on while the men — those fathers, sons, and brothers — are blended together into giant arrows that criss-cross the map of Europe or Asia.

This all looks similar no matter what battle you're reading about, and to many a book-buried scholar, the sands of Normandy have the same off-white hue as the dirt in the trenches of Verdun or the grass in the fields of Waterloo.

But those books will never be able to tell you what it was really like.

You'll never watch a book's eyes wander as he remembers his friend who died when his plane flew into the side of a mountain, or see his frail hands rub the scar tissue where that metal wasp bit him.

He won't shudder when he remembers that "rat-a-tat-tat" of the German anti-aircraft artillery, or be able to tell you in a cracked voice that if there was another war, they would be the very last person to sign up.

He can't explain the pure, utter fear he felt — or how he overcame it to do what needed to be done.

Those that can are our fathers, our grandfathers. We know them. We love them. Many of us have buried them. Unfortunately it won't always be that way, and we are one or two decades removed from having the "Greatest Generation" become a fact instead of a memory.

In the years to come, people will look at them the same way that we look at that great-great-grandfather who fought at Vicksburg or that distant relative who came over on the Mayflower — they existed, sure, but we don't know him, we've never heard his voice or gave him a Father's Day card or held the flashlight for him while he worked on a car in the driveway.

Nah. Once we're gone, they're just a name, a rank, and a small part of that big arrow. I know it's inevitable — time slows for no man — but it's heartbreaking just the same.

So while we're here, we should remember the anniversaries for things like Pearl Harbor or D-Day for what they are: not just another occasion to attend some ceremony, but a chance to be the people that can share the memories of those who, quite literally, saved the world from an overwhelming darkness.

Future generations won't be so lucky. The worst part is they don't even know it.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

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