One of the most moving trips I have taken was to the Normandy D-Day Beaches last weekend. After arriving in Bayeux by train (I learned a lot about the tribulations of rail transportation that day...), I hopped onto a little shuttle with our guide and some other families.
The first stop was Pointe du Hoc. It remains in nearly the same condition as it appeared during WWII-- huge craters from bombs make the ground ungulate for miles. I climbed around old barbed wire into a German bunker and looked over the cliff which the Germans would have seen the Americans scaling.
Next was Omaha Beach. It is actually quite gorgeous, but was a tough attack point for the Americans. The current swept the soldiers away from their desired region, landing them in unfamiliar territory against the Germans who were in a much better defensive position in the hills.
The American Cemetery was my favorite stop. It was pristine and gorgeous, overlooking the ocean. Families from Normandy adopt a soldier's gravesite and generation after generation will continue to visit that spot, bringing flowers to honor him/her. A cool tradition for visiting relatives of a passed soldier is to rub sand from the beaches of Normandy into the engraved headstone to make it seem like gold. The cemetery also has a great new museum with cool films.
Finally, Longues-sur-mer Battery with its four guns still preserved and pointing towards the beach.
Is war more frightening with the greater knowledge we have today, leading to dangerous new mechanical and chemical weapons? Or was it scarier then, when without a GPS you didn't even know where you were landing and ran blindly into the enemy? Of course, war is always horrible-- I heard a fitting quote in Normandy: "We must conquer war, or war will conquer us..."
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