Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 16, 1994 TAG: 9405190005
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By GLENN M. AYERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
So, it wasn't exactly the same - to say the least. But then, it was as close as ever I want to come.
Back in the apartment, on "Meet the Press," I watched Defense Secretary William Perry defend not sending ground troops to Bosnia. Simply stated, this means there are dynamics in America demanding the contrary; why else would our top gun devote his Easter day to denying some Muslim hoo-doo's pleas on national TV.
So, despite all the history education in this country and the ubiquitous historical societies protecting every square foot of mildew, little is learned from history of war's reality. The monster that made Pickett's division chopped liver, that continued omnivorously in the Argonne, Normandy, Korea and Vietnam, now wants Bosnia to replace Iraq, Rwanda for Somalia, and - God forbid - deja vu in Korea. It is the demented demon that Matthew Brady said reduces whole men to broken rag dolls; a thing, Gen. Lee observed, we should grow too fond of were it not so horrible. Problem is, war is really not a single unit that the monster metaphor implies; it is a complex, creeping, continuum called "military solution," probably best described by Shakespeare's trope: "Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war."
At the end of May, Bedford is planning a commemoration of the D-Day invasion, a commemoration I am happy to be part of, but only if the focus is on the full tragedy of what happened at Dog Green between 0636 and 0700 on June 6, 1944. Otherwise that "last full measure of devotion" Company A and its comrades gave becomes something we take - for granted.
Just what did Company A give? To fully understand it, one should remember its soldiers were not pink-cheeked draftees thrown into the breach. They were highly trained military professionals chosen to be the first company of their regiment to hit the sands. As one writer explained:
"At the Normandy landings in 1944, the right-flank regiment at Omaha Beach was the 116th Infantry ... Its performance was superior ... 82 years previously its performance had likewise been superior ... the 116th Infantry had been the Stonewall Brigade."
They were wholly competent and fully confident. Properly supported, they most likely would have led the drive as was done on the other beaches, but this was "Bloody Omaha," and Dog Green was the bloodiest sector of all.
The official report demonstrated what has been repeated over and over in the media. The full assault plan never materialized: The bombs were not dropped, the tanks not landed, and the LCAs didn't make it to shallow water. Still, as all infantrymen know, that only meant the last step came first - the foot soldiers were unleashed up a pristine beach to the waiting enemy, snarling behind solid cover.
When the Mausers opened fire, A Company had the chance of a buck elk charging a tree stand. By 0700, they were reduced to what the report described as "inert, leaderless, almost incapable of action." Stated more aphoristically, in the beautiful idiom of a Bedford soldier who survived: "It was all over for us right quick."
It wasn't fair. In the huge victory that D-Day was, the best unit got thumped. Like Bob Feller losing two Series games, it just wasn't right - and Dog Green was no damned game. So, where was justice? And where is truth? Looking back at the half century, how and what did Company A contribute? Is there ever anything gained by loosing the war-dogs who seem bent only on destruction, fair or no?
To answer that, one must study parallel events, often overlooked during the havoc. The most significant happening the world knew outside the war zones in 1944 was a gathering in New Hampshire of various bankers, financiers and economists from 44 nations. The Bretton Woods Conference, as it has become known, laid the foundations for the postwar monetary system, establishing the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The conference began July 1, the day the Cherbourg peninsula was secured, and ended July 22, three days before the last Nazis fled Normandy.
Coincidental? Hardly. The conferees knew they had come to set an economic agenda for the post-Depression world; the beachhead at Omaha was the last card in the hand that sent America to the table holding most of the chips. The "military solution" would grind up a lot more humanity, but the end was already settled. The fat cats had the dogs of war on leads.
For Americans, the immediate postwar change was incredible. On our Bedford farm, we eliminated the oil lamp, the cookstove, the horse-drawn plow, hand-pumped water and the outhouse - all still in place at 0636, 6 June 44. We now baled hay, combined wheat, ground feed with electric power and made a cabinet of the old icebox. Swept north with my family by the affluence, I was nearly overwhelmed by the brave new world of assembly lines and expressways, even did yardwork for the Ford executive who coined the term, "automation."
All over the country, it was the same. Advances in industrial production, transportation, agriculture and medicine - particularly medicine - were nearly incomprehensible. One wonders where surgery, antisepsis and antibiotics would be without war's accelerator. The same for rails, highways, air travel, space exploration, weather radar and every form of human communication from computers to car phones to fax.
Every soldier who fell on Dog Green bought a better life for those Americans who survived - ironically, those in the vast majority who never even fought. That's another paradox: War gives no one what they deserve, but as Clint Eastwood said for an Academy Award, "'Deserves' has got nothin' to do with it."
So it was in Korea and 'Nam, wars we were withheld from "winning." Yet, when they were over and the Cold War issues settled, the affluent society multiplied its affluence; a market-share plunder returned to Rome. Those confused over the Cold War's returns should consider how one can obtain better meals in America with food stamps than in Albania with gold.
Still, there are the broken bodies and the home front's broken hearts. The fallen swallow blood that we might drink like kings. Nowhere, moreover, do we see an end. Behind every peacemaker stands "The sword, the jail, the gallows," says Capt. Vere, and Hemingway (the Normandy correspondent) implies that only in his world of men without women can we avoid the inexorable progression from marriage to family to civilization to war. Jesus promises peace, but adds cryptically that such passes understanding and occurs in his Kingdom not of this world.
So, if we query why must men die so that we can live lives beyond dreams, it is hard to answer. That, unfortunately, is what D-Day was about; what Company A's half-hour on the beach was about. When this conundrum is broken, it can be said: " ... We laughed, knowing that better men would come, and greater wars; when each proud fighter brags He wars on Death - for Life; not men - for flags."
Glenn M. Ayers teaches at Staunton River High School in Bedford County.
by CNB