You and I Will be the Last to Feel an Emotional Tie to D-Day

This morning, June 6th, eighty years ago, your father, mother, grandfather, or grandmother likely participated in some way in the greatest battle ever fought to preserve the civilized world. And they did so as Americans. Together.

There’s only around 200 veterans left now who hit those beaches of France on D-Day on June 6, 1944. We are celebrating them this week. When they are finally gone, a piece of America will vanish with them. And within another few decades, when you and I are gone, the sons, the daughters, and grandchildren of the Greatest Generation, D-Day will only speak from the history books as we know of the Civil War today.

Do what you can to preserve what you have. And if you are one of the lucky few who still have a veteran parent or grandparent who is still with us, who fought for our country in World War II, take some precious time to honor them in whatever manner seems proper.

I’ve been shifting through my dad’s records the last few months to prepare them for safe keeping by his 381st Bomb Group’s historians. I wish he was still here to talk about what I’ve found. But then again, he never talked about the war, so I suspect he wouldn’t now.

His personal journal was filled with detail and anticipation after he arrived on base at Ridgewell, England, November 10, 1943 to fly a crew of nine other men in one of the most storied planes of the war, the B-17. As the mission descriptions progressed, and his men, his friends, didn’t return, the sentences became shorter, the rhythm increasingly unsettled. On December 24th, dad was given command of the 535th Squadron. On February 19, 1944, dad stopped making journal entries. He had only completed half his tour.

A page from dad’s squadron crew book. He kept track of every member. This Berlin mission was described by some in the 381st as the toughest of their tour. Six 381st aircraft were lost. The Higgins crew was flying in the Flying Fortress B-17 “Spamcan”. There were six killed and four POW. Higgins’ dog-tags were found in the wreck as he stayed with the plane for the crew to bail until it exploded midair per witness statements. There are lingering questions about whether Eddie Delgado died in the explosion or whether he was killed on the ground by civilians after he bailed out. Thanks to the 381st Bomb Group Association for this information.

On June 4, dad’s Squadron bombed the rail yards in Calais, France in the Allied attempt to fake out the Nazis to make them think the inevitable invasion would be on the beaches there. It worked. The fake out saved lives on D-Day, June 6. On October 19, dad’s tour was over and he returned to the States.

Dad was called back to fight in the Korean War. About a year and a half after that struggle ended, shortly after Dad and mom bought a little house, I was born. With the family’s savings, and I’m pretty sure with the help of the GI Bill, they opened a restaurant. I still have the old bundle of dad’s recipes, all stained with kitchen.

Making a go of it. Dad and mom opened up a restaurant after the war. Dad was the cook. Mom waited tables. I remember climbing up to the top shelf in the back room to steal lima beans to plant in my garden in the backyard.

Growing up, dad and I butted heads. A lot. Then came college, which dad and mom paid for. I didn’t know how lucky I was. I didn’t understand how much work dad and mom did to keep it all together. Going through dad’s war journal now, looking into the faces of the friends he lost, and remembering some of the thousands of things my dad said to me about honor and duty, I’m beginning to see the light. My parents were heroes. And they kept their agony hidden as best they could to raise my sister, brother, and I. I wish I’d known when I was younger. I know now.

All of this has gotten me to think about our country today. We have so much to be proud of, so much to celebrate, and so much to fight for. Together. However, it seems a lot of people I meet and listen to lately have forgotten much of this. There’s a lot of complaining going on. Some seem to feel the United States is in a downward spiral that only their brand of hubris can save us from. Depression is standard operating procedure for many young people as they have been overwhelmed by the multiple threats they have been told they face. Some feel their personal pain will always be greater than another’s on account of their heritage, family, or group membership – relative suffering it’s called in some social science circles. Degrees in complaining are offered in what a friend of mine calls, Grievance Studies. Some carry the weight of their past so deeply that their faces seem to sag, their eyes no longer blink. Their future is fettered by what was.

I didn’t know it at the time, but my dad helped me understand what relative suffering actually is. There is always someone out there who has it worse than you, he would say. So, be grateful for what you have.

That defining moment occurred for me while in college, having what I thought was an emotional disaster. A couple friends had betrayed me, another had an actual emotional breakdown and was sent away, and my best friend was leaving for a two-year stint in the Peace Corps. And there were other things. I called home in tears. I wanted to give up.

At this point, my dad had put up with a lot of my complaining over the previous couple years, including forays into Marxist ideology. He had had enough.

“Don’t tell me about giving up,” he boomed over the phone. “You want to know what wanting to give up really means?” I don’t remember what I said, but it didn’t matter. Dad was loud. “I had men who walked into running propellers because they couldn’t take it. They couldn’t take seeing another friend’s blood spill across the floor. They couldn’t take another trip into the sky, being shot at, watching friends die, not knowing if they were next.”

Yesterday, a dear friend came over with his wife who was diagnosed with ALS and is undergoing experimental brain surgery. She had a difficult time speaking and movement was a struggle. But she laughed last night. A lot. She told us her attitude has to do with a deaf young man from Afghanistan who has been helping her. He was on the last plane out before the Taliban shut down the country. He didn’t know anyone. He couldn’t hear. He couldn’t speak well. He didn’t know where his wife and children were or if they were alive or not. They didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know where he was going.

It’s been a couple years now. The young man has located his family and they are just about able to come to America if everything works out. He is safe. He has new friends. He is in America.

I think of my dad every day, especially when things don’t go the way I would like. I smile and remember how lucky I am to be alive. How lucky I am to live in the United States.

Thank you, dad and mom. Thank you to all those who kept civilization intact for all of us in June of 1944. For America. Together.

Dad, Lt. Col. Charles L. Halsey, with friend at the base, 381st Bomb Group, Ridgewell, England.