Local opinion: Remember the crosses of Normandy

What do the crosses of Normandy have to do with Trump’s scheduled military parade in Washington DC? Everything.

The crosses represent heroic American military sacrifice to seize back democracy from the ruthless dictator who took it away with military power. Trump’s military parade on the other hand (and for the very first time in American history) represents Trump’s deconstruction of the Constitution, the rule of law, and the oversight power of Congress and the federal courts. Trump’s absolute control over America’s lethal military power, symbolically on display in a Hitler-Stalin-Putin-Xi Jinping-Kim Jong-Un-style military parade, is Trump’s message to us all. “Be afraid! The military will do what I order it do.” Juxtapose the crosses of Normandy against an authoritarian military parade — then what? Resolve?

Today, as I write this piece it is Memorial Day, a day to remember the American sacrifices in war to protect and defend what the sacrifices meant and still mean today. The “meaning”? Simple, yet complex — what it means to be an American. Every year, soon after Memorial Day, on June 6, we honor and dignify the crosses of Normandy.

Dignity resides on the tombstones of those who perished on the beaches of Normandy in service of their country, and a measure of that dignity is transferable to all of those who serve their country as best they can — in war and in peace. The question is, however, how much of the dignity from the tombstones is transferable to those who don’t serve — the beneficiaries of the sacrifice?

For me, the answer is not that complex. The dignity resides in the quality of the “memory.” Of course, the families and friends directly affected by the sacrifice of loved ones “remember” better because grief has the same shelf life as those who bear it. For the rest of us — the faceless and numberless beneficiaries of the sacrifice — dignity is conferred only if we manage to set aside some of our routine activities so as to inform ourselves and to reflect on the sacrifice. Flying a flag, even without memory and reflection, is important because it is “something”, but it is the “reflection” that confers the dignity of the tombstones.

Something to reflect on: On June 6, 1944, the Allies, led by the Americans, landed on the beaches of Normandy, France. On the landing beaches of Normandy, there were five main sectors — listed in order east to west: Sword, Juno, and Gold for the British and Canadian landings; Omaha and Utah for the American landings. These landings all were difficult and came with great loss of life and injury, but the Americans were given the most difficult landing sites. The five landing sites created a beach-head perimeter roughly between the cities of Caen to the east and Carentan to the west.

In Normandy I count 19 major memorial and museum sites. The primary American cemetery is located near the present town of Colleville. The cemetery holds the remains of 9,386 Americans — each with a white marble cross or another religious marker, impeccably aligned in rows resembling a military formation. In the same cemetery a father and son lie side by side, and for 33 of the fallen it is brother next to brother. Three hundred seven of the markers are inscribed with the phrase “Known only to God.”

In a second cemetery, known as the Saint James Brittany Cemetery, near the province of Brittany, there are 4,410 American graves. The remains of some 14,000 other Americans were repatriated home to their families. Behind another memorial building on the site, there is a garden of remembrance devoted to another 1,557 Americans whose bodies were never found. A circular wall is etched with their names. There are other graves of fallen Americans in other local cemeteries that dot the green pastoral countryside of Normandy, the dairy province of France. We owe them all the respect we can muster, and not just on Memorial Day or on June 6, but every single day we grapple with what it means to be an American.

Keeping our memory of the crosses of Normandy in our minds, as Trump launches his military parades, Trump’s tribute to the military is that he referred to the American war dead in French cemeteries as “suckers” and “losers” — this from a military coward who evaded the military draft with fake bone spurs (multiple times). The examples of Trump’s disrespect of the military are too numerous to list but let’s not forget the many instances of disrespect of war hero John McCain, Gold Star families, politicization of military commemorative events, absence and silence upon the return of American war dead from the Middle East, and cuts to veterans health benefits.

The museums, the memorial sites, and the tombstones are essential. However, they are insufficient. Our respect for the sacrifice of the American dead should come with a resolve — a vow to fight tyranny, fascism, and dictatorship with every fiber of our existence. This is the dignity transferred to us by the tombstones. It is our responsibility to those who knew what it meant to sacrifice — to be an American.