Valor, Fidelity, and Sacrifice

Our next period of study in our history group is that of World War I and II. To kick off our studies, our group took a field trip to the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia. We have often passed the signs for this memorial and wondered why it was so far inland of Virginia and not closer to Washington D.C. The first part of our tour was to gather in a WWII tent to see some military items and talk about D-Day. Some things we learned in this tent were: The "D" in D-Day stands for...drum roll please...day. That's right, in World War I, the military started referring to the day a battle was to take place as D-day and the hour...any guesses? H-hour. Obviously this was to keep all plans as a secret from the enemy. Another question that was answered was why the memorial was in Bedford, but I'll get to that later. To help the kids remember who was involved on D-day, the tour guide had the kids act it out. Clarissa and her two friends are the Allied forces. Thus, they are looking strong. Jared and a friend got to be the English Channel which was wild and crazy as a result of bad weather. Two other boys were Germany, weak and sick.

Then one of the boys got to be a model as we discussed the soldiers equipment and supplies.

Everything about the memorial is symbolic. This view shows a garden. The cement structure is in the shape of a sword. Behind that is a display of flowers representing the different nations of the Allied forces. Next comes the water that is the English channel, then the beaches of Normandy (shown later). In the background the tall structure represents the operation and is surrounded by flags from each of the twelve Allied nations.

This statue of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Allied Commander-in-Chief, is covered with a veranda that has a map of the D-day operation overhead. The frightening part was that each of the Germans underwater mines are marked with a white tile, and there were a lot of them.

At this wall, we learned a little about each of the American companies who went into action on June 6, 1944. We also listened to a voice recording of the speech that Eisenhower gave to the troops before they left England to cross the English Channel into France.

This large cement area represents the English Channel. This is our group listening to the tour guide as he explained how many men were lost that day. On either side are the names of those soldiers who lost their lives from all of the Allied troops. One side had the names of those from all the other countries other than American, the other side was full of American soldiers names. More than half of the lives lost that day were American.

This part of the Memorial represents the valor of these men as they were brought in on boats and set of the sandy beaches. The cross thing in the back were put into the water to tear up any boats that tried to cross the channel. The sand on the ground is actually sand brought in from the beaches of Normandy.

This is an actual airplane from D-Day. There were 1100 airplanes in the air that day. They say the sky was totally black for the planes were wing to wing as they flew in parachuters and dropped bombs. The day before D-day each of the 1100 airplanes were painted with the three white stripes so that they could be identified at Allied airplanes.

This part of the memorial represents the fallen and their sacrifice. There wasn't time to give proper burial to the dead. Each fallen soldier's gun was put into the ground with his helmet on top and identification tag hung around the gun. This is where I talk about why the monument is in Bedford. The company that was made up of boys from Bedford Virginia sent in 177 soldiers on D-day. Only 15 of those boys survived that day. The company of Bedford boys sustained more loss than any other company on D-day.

This statue represents fidelity. The artist made sure to include wedding rings on both soldiers. The bravery of these men must have been driven by the love they had for their families and their country.

The monument behind our family represents Operation Overlord. Overlord was the code name given to the whole operation. The white stripes represent the stripes on the airplanes and the shape of the top represents the shape of the roof lines of the homes in Normandy. Finally, the monument itself is 44 feet 6 inches high to commemorate the date of June 1944. And, as if that isn't symbolism enough there is another statue further down that has a plaque made of special marble that actually turns red when it rains.

We enjoyed that Grandma and Poppa Mattson were able to join us on this educational field trip. It was a beautiful spring day, we all felt the reverence as we pondered on those who have sacrificed for us so that we may live in this free country.