The youngest son and I watched Saving Private Ryan the other day. No matter how many times I see the movie, it still resonates with me due to it’s treatment of war. Far too often, movies and television shows whitewash over the nasty bits and try and make war into this glorious and glamorous adventure. I’ve read, listened to, and watched enough first-hand accounts to unequivocally state that it’s not, and this movie graphically shows why.

When I first started learning about WWII, it was all about the big themes. The “good” allies against the “evil” axis brought things into a stark dichotomy. Since we were good, we could do no wrong, right? That phase lasted me through most of grade school and into high school, but after that I became more interested in the human side. What did the person who was actually there feel, what did they think, what did they do? That’s when I found out that in war, idealism goes out the window pretty fast. Saving Private Ryan shows us a glimpse of this – Americans shoot surrendering prisoners, and a prisoner who was spared comes back to kill more Americans.

I’ve read, watched, and listened to countless interviews with men and women who were involved in the war, listened to their stories. Part of that was my desire to know and understand the history, but there was also both the desire and fear to know how I would respond if placed in that situation. I already knew that I wasn’t any type of hero, but I desperately hoped I wouldn’t be reduced to a cowering body shaking in a foxhole.

I’m nearly forty now, and I still maintain an interest in WWII as part of my larger love of history. I still respect and admire the sacrifice that has been made by our soldiers through the years, yet this does not mean I love war or the thought of war (which seems to place me outside of the target demographic of the military channel based on their ads). One of the most important lessons my Grandfather taught me was that one can respect and support the warrior while at the same time not accepting the need for a particular mission or war.

As I’ve told my son before, I don’t like the fact of American men and women dying in Iraq and Afghanistan because I don’t think that those wars are necessary to preserve our nation. However, I have nothing but respect, admiration, and gratitude for those who have served, are serving, and will serve in those theaters of operation. Based on conversations I’ve had, this opinion puts me in a decidedly small minority.

Today’s poem is new to me; I found it when researching war poetry online. Mr. Bennet draws a connection between the veterans of Normandy, and the veterans of our time. Although I agree with most of his sentiments, I disagree and think that even if they were unable to break the cycle of war and power, the dead did make a difference and did make a change for the better in many ways.

Harbingers (From Normandy)

Frail, old men with weathered hands stand,
Alone, lost on the wide sandy beaches,
Each turning back his rusty mind clock
Piercing the veil of memories
When they were young, anxious and terrified,
Boy-soldiers in battle fighting for their lives,
Experiencing the gamut of fear and death
Watching friends died horribly,
Scarring their young minds.forever.

Blue beaches murmur waves
Splashing old, rusted war remnants.
A sea bird flaps wet beaches
Where the sea swells and crashes gently on wet sand,
Retreating back erasing all footprints.
The men stare the distance,
At blurred memories through tears.
Trickling down their cheeks dripping softly,
To merge with the sea like before.

They came to say good-bye to their friends,
To a confused past which has no answers.
The graveyard crosses watch in stony silence,
Stoically from tree shadows on soft meadows,
In eternal military formation fronted by small, flags,
Wind-shivering in the hush of silence.
Marching the stillness in quiet precision
Protecting the young soldiers buried there,
Frozen in time and death

The old veterans stand awkward, unsure with the dead.
Experiencing those familiar, dreaded, sick feelings
Of remorse, regret, blame, and fault for what happened
To their generation who gave so much for their country.
They have gathered one final time
To share history, blame and guilt for all eternity
Banding together as one, they embrace the moment,
Experiencing once more, this terrible place of memories.


And the same salt sea air, still blows up from the beach
Once inhaled in panic by all the young fighting men
Mired in the beach mud conducting the senseless slaughter of children,
Trapped forever in the obscenity and vulgarity of war,
The pain returns for a moment, overwhelming them,
It hangs suspended, as real as yesterday, then drifts away and mellows away.
Now time, history, and denial blessedly blur the horror and inhumanity
Of what they did; of what was done to them.

The War President from America
Mounts the podiums to prattle the virtues of war,
Attempting to rewrite history, to deny war’s reality,
He exploits the moment for selfish means,
To justify his war as a noble cause, ignoring its brutality,
Thoughtlessly attempting to validate, substantiate, and authenticate,

War’s vicious crimes against civilization
Turning the senseless slaughter of innocents
Into a righteous cause, to be proud of and condone..
Turning war into a sound-bite of empty words
Of praise, blessing, glory, and accomplishment.
Something to be proud of, to revel in,
To relish with sacred, biblical rhetoric
From a shallow, self-centered political opportunist.
Whose meanings and oratory become quickly lost,
His words floating away with the wind, out of relevance, out of touch
Out of context, drifting, beyond the restive crowds.
To fall useless and disappear, in the cold, impassionate mud.
Falling deaf on the ears of the dead warriors
The ultimate, wasted sacrifice, from another generation

It is at this moment, the old veterans
Eyes mist up, overflow, and tears flow shamelessly

As they at last comprehend all their sacrifice, all their pain,
All their sorrow, all their suffering, all the death,
Did not change or alter a thing, was not a lesson learned
Nor an experience not to be repeated..
Realizing their friend’s painful, brutal, ultimate sacrifice
Was only a necessary evil of Mankind’s political process
Which has never changed, and never will,
For each generation brings anew to the world
Its own self-styled madness of universal death, tragedy and suffering,
In wars to be fought by the young, bright-eyed children of the world
Unknowingly raised as sacrificial lambs of slaughter,
To be killed and gone forever, for nothing.
That is why, all Veterans cry.

In this hallowed place of the dead
The lonely graves of war’s youthful victims
Who died for a thought,
an idea, for a cause
Promulgated by selfish, insane men in power
These war graves and cemeteries are Harbingers
Of the eternal, mindless death cycle of war.
Young men killed by politicians’ words and mindless acts,
Their promise and existence forever ended too soon.
Now, forever sleep beneath the green muffled grass
Sharing the earth with the youth and victims of past wars,
Too numerous to count, to numbing to contemplate,
The dead, as powerless and impotent as the now living
To change or alter, or detour the inexorable course of madmen,
They patiently wait for the next generation to join them.

– Curtis D. Bennett