The Memory of War

On a bright, windy day in March 2000, I stood on a cliff in France looking down at Omaha Beach, site of some of the bloodiest fighting on D-Day, through the firing slit of a preserved German bunker. My view of the beach was so clear and unimpeded that I could read the writing on the sweatshirt of a boy strolling on the sand a hundred feet below. There had been a storm the night before, …

…time."17 At the end of the movie "Saving Private Ryan," an elderly World War II veteran visits the American cemetery at Colleville-Sur-Mer, near Omaha Beach. Weeping, he kneels before the grave of a young officer responsible for saving his life, and says, "I have tried to live my life the best I could. I hope that was enough. I hope at least in your eyes I've earned what all of you have done for me."