The Past Is Not Past

I’ve been to France but didn't get to Normandy. I’ve never stood on Omaha Beach, stared up at the intimidating cliffs and wondered how men accomplished this impossible mission.

“D-Day” is one of those links to the past that trigger images of an old war with black and white photos of the Normandy invasion in 1944. It is remembered by aged men, most of them frail and fading. You see them interviewed on TV occasionally, their memories of those awful days 68 years ago as fresh and painful as though it happened just last week. Men whose number dwindles sadly with each passing day. You see their names in the obits with little American flags next to them.

I have nothing to add to their story, to this day of tribute. I’ve seen the movies, read the books, attended lectures. I was 9 years old when “our boys” landed. To me, it was adventure of the highest order. The stuff of comic books and movies and newspaper headlines and stories in Life magazine. I don’t recall seeing many pictures of dead, dying, wounded, maimed, suffering. 

About 4 years ago I interviewed a man, then in his mid-80’s, who was there. At Omaha Beach. His name was Charles and he had lived a productive, happy life since the end of the war, raised a family, was still married and owned his own modest home. He and I were doing a video for his kids and grandkids. About his life. He talked about the war, the landing, the hard road across France.

We got near the end of our conversation. He returned to one memory of D-Day, nothing deep or revealing, just a thought about being so thirsty. He paused. I asked him, “Are you a hero, Charles?” He looked at me, then looked away for a long time. I thought maybe he hadn’t heard the question. Then I saw tears in his eyes. It was the first time in the 2 hours we had been talking I had seen such depth of pain and feeling. Charles turned back to me and struggled to say, “The heroes are buried over there. Or they’re at the bottom of the ocean. I’m not a hero.”

Maybe that’s what D-Day means to me. Sure, part of it is the amazing bravery shown on all the beaches during those days. But the other part is the pain that continues decades later, the memories that remain buried. Or almost buried, only to resurface at the most unexpected moments. 

To me, they were all heroes. And I pause to think of them them today.

Photo by Susan Manlin Katzman, taken at

Normany in May, 2012.

Susan's website

The Talk We Need - A Veterans Day Thought

There's a lot of talk these days everywhere you turn. Sometime taking a position, giving an opinion, analyzing a situation, criticizing someone. On TV and radio, on cell phones. Even cartoons, if you believe that. An article in the NY Times says cartoons these days are loaded with dialogue while lacking movement. They're right. Road Runner doesn't talk, neither did Tom and Jerry. They moved, we laughed. Then of course there's Charlie Chaplin who made the world laugh and cry without saying a word.


So what's the point of this diatribe? Veterans Day. Today. Look back more than six decades ago, to World War 2. A lot of our troops never came home. Sadly, tens of thousands died in Europe and the Pacific. Most of our men came home though. But there's a sadness in that as well.  Because so many of them never talked about what happened there, what they saw, how it affected them.  And what they carry with them now, more than 60 years later.  It’s not easy for them to talk about their experiences, especially to their families.  But isn’t it a shame that these men who earned the right to talk have chosen to keep it all in?  Tim Russert of “Meet the Press” said they possess a “quiet eloquence.”  I like that.  Quiet eloquence.

I used to play senior softball with a guy named Charlie. He’s 85 years old now. I told him about a book I had read, called “Flags of Our Fathers.”  It’s the story of a young man who learns that his dad was one of the six guys who raised the flag on Iwo Jima in 1945.  He found out about it after his dad had passed away.  Charlie said, “Gerry, I was on Iwo  too.”  He surprised me.  I knew he was a Marine, but not much else.  I asked him if he’d ever told his wife or his kids about what he went through.  He said, “They never asked, they didn’t seem interested.  Anyway we were just doing a job.”  Quiet eloquence.  Still, I could feel there were undercurrents in his life he didn’t want to acknowledge.

I wonder how many stories and memories are locked up.  How many sons and daughters, and grand children, will never know what Pop or Grandpa went through.  Time keeps on moving.  The older we get, the faster it moves.  I hope there’s time for these men to bring their families into their past.  I hope they talk about it.  It’s the kind of talk we need.