Normandy American Cemetery & Memorial

The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial is probably one of the most solemn places I've ever been. More so, I think, than Ground Zero or the Pentagon 9/11 Memorial. Probably even more than Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg.

The magnitude of what happened at Normandy is there in front you from the start. It's a little bewildering at first to see them all. Row upon row of white crosses and stars of David. Names and ages of boys who died that summer on them. 

Then it becomes apparent. What happened on those beaches and bocage country beyond them was an ugly brutal industrial street fight. The very definition of a "meat grinder" is how one book I read about that war put it. You marvel anyone lived to tell the tale, collect the dead, heal the wounded, and move on with their lives after the surrender documents were signed 11 months later.

The duality of Normandy, and war, is laid bare then. Amazing beauty and extreme ugliness. Normandy is a beautiful place. I'm definitely going back. Going there after my own time in uniform I can see why frail old men, the boys who jumped in or ran across the beaches, still will it to keep going back year after year. But you see there, in a place filled with 9,387 graves, the place represents the duality of human nature for what it is and will probably always be: hate and love. 

Despite all that the cemetery represents, it's still a solemn place. You still take the time to reflect, not because you have to. But because you want to.