By Phillip B. Rarick
This summer my family had the opportunity to travel to France. It was a busy trip, and we saw many spectacular works of art and architecture by past generations of artists.
The most special trip was our visit Normandy, where a generation of Americans representing the diversity of this country, challenged and beat back one of the darkest forces ever assembled in human history. Here are a few pictures from this trip.
Before we left for the trip, my son, Joshua and I, saw The Longest Day, Saving Private Ryan, and the series, Band of Brothers, the latter series being the most realistic portrayals of the gritty life and death of soldiers in WW II that I have ever seen.
Some of the best words to describe this generation I believe are found in Tom Brokow’s book, The Greatest Generation where he writes:
At a time in their lives when their days and nights should have been filled with innocent adventure, love, and the lessons of a workaday world, they were fighting, often hand to hand, in the most primitive conditions possible, across the bloodied landscape of France, Belgium, Italy, Austria. They fought their way up a necklace of South Pacific islands few had ever heard of before . . . Iwo Jima, Guadacanal, Okinawa.
In a subsequent book, The Greatest Generation Speaks, Brokow writes:
If we are to heed the past to prepare for the future, we should listen to these voices of a generation that speaks to us of duty and honor, sacrifice and accomplishment.
The visit to Normandy awoke in me – and hopefully my children – a much delayed understanding – and pure wonder – of the sacrifices and accomplishments of my parent’s generation. It is a privilege to share these pictures with you.