Last week I started reading the book The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan. It is an eye-opening account of D-Day. From the paratroopers dropped into different parts of Normandy at midnight to the last wave of soldiers dropped onto the beaches at the end of June 6, Ryan uses eye-witness accounts to tell us what happened that day. The book was written only about 15 years after D-Day and the accounts sound fresh and real. This was the first book I had ever read about D-Day. This was the first time I learned pretty much anything about D-Day. Before reading this book the only things I could have told you about D-Day would have been that it happened in France, there was a beach called Omaha, and a lot of soldiers died. I was totally clueless to what really happened that day. I didn't know anything about the paratroopers who were dropped up to 30 miles away from their targets into murky swamps that were impossible to climb out of. I didn't know about the soldiers who had to stay cramped in their ships for 3 days, seasick and without any sleep, before being shoved out into chest high waters that were already red with blood. I had no idea that the first wave of soldiers sent to Omaha beach were told before leaving the boat that their casualty rate would probably be around 90%. I had no idea.
I read that book. I googled maps showing the path the ships took to get to the Normandy beaches. I saw on these maps which beaches were taken by American soldiers, which ones by British soldiers, and which ones by Canadian soldiers. I talked with my parents about D-Day asking them lots of questions. We watched Saving Private Ryan last night. I just started reading a book by Stephen Ambrose called Citizen Soldier about the days following D-Day.
10,000 to 12,000 Allied soldiers were killed, captured, wounded, or went missing on D-Day. 1,465 American soldiers were killed on D-Day, 3,184 were wounded, 1,928 went missing, and 26 were captured.
And after watching Saving Private Ryan last night I asked Jesus, "How in the world are any of us worth that?" The soldiers that morning of D-Day knew they were probably not going to live to see the evening of D-Day. But they left the airplane, the boat, anyway. They fought and died so that we could love and live in peace today. And I ask Jesus, "How are we worth that? We don't love. We aren't peacemakers. We are selfish, brutal, terrible people. They fought for the generations to come. But we're here now and we're not that great." I ask Him this out of anger and grief. And He says to me, "I thought you were worth it. I thought you were worth coming into this world of selfishness, brutishness, and terror so that I could eventually bring You to live with me forever. I thought you were worth dying for. It doesn't surprise Me that they too thought you were worth dying for." So I sit here and I cry as I think of what they did for me 68 years ago and what He did for me 2,000 years ago. And next week when I stand on the beaches, when I see and smell the ocean that was red with their blood 68 years ago, when I see their white gravestones, I will thank them and I will thank Jesus for dying for them before they had to die for me.
Thank You Jesus.
