I let the anniversary pass, so I could include both relatives, both from Dallas, who went ashore on Omaha Beach on the first and second days. One, a great uncle who landed on the first day as a Navy communications officer, died a few years ago. The other, his nephew who was an Army officer in the signal corps who came in on the second day, is in his eighties. I like Belmont Club’s take:
"Sixty three years after D-Day the ghostly 8th Airforce bomber fields are silent, unvisited by men now too old to make the pilgrimage. Across the green counties, ‘Muhammad is now second only to Jack as the most popular name for baby boys in Britain and is likely to rise to No 1 by next year’…"
Changes, indeed. My great uncle’s nephew went back to Omaha in 1999. I turn the little bottle of sand he gave me in my hand. It looks like ordinary beach sand. But it isn’t.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 