White Stone Crosses

Our guide told us that over 9,000 soldiers were buried in the American Cemetery in Normandy. I couldn’t fathom that number until I saw the graves. The rows and rows and rows of white stone crosses. As I walked amongst those crosses, I couldn’t find an end, or beginning point to them. They just seemed to continue on.

It was ironic to me that those crosses should be so evenly lined up and spaced apart, so symmetrical and perfect, when no doubt all of the soldiers buried there were killed in horrific, messy, abrupt ways.

As our guide continued to ramble facts about the cemetery. . . soil shipped from the U.S., American trees planted, sand rubbed into the letters of the graves…I could only half listen. The other half of my thoughts were with those men, and four women, that are buried under those crosses.

The majority of them were about my age. At 23, I can’t imagine seeing the sights they saw, hearing the bomb blasts and gun fire, and fearing for my life at every minute of every hour of every day. At 23, I’m still young. I have a lot to learn, a lot to see and so much to still accomplish. I bet those men felt the same way. And yet they learned a lot and saw a lot and aaccomplished a lot in such a short time that I feel that they would seem so much older than me.

I continued to think about their lives. Where were they born? What was their childhood like? Did they want to go to college? What career did they want to choose? Why did they join the army? Did they want to go to war?

I came across two young men from Ohio. I could imagine them growing up in a small, farming town an hour away from any type of city, just like me. I wrote down their names; Lowell A. Drooled a private of the Infantry 83 Division and John A. Kleep a Captain of the 8 Infantry 4 Division. I tried to research them and search for the answers to my questions. Though, it seems that they are meant to be a mystery and I’m left to continue my questions.

More than I would have expected I came across white stone crosses that read, “Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God.” There were so many unknown soldiers. Didn’t their mothers want to know what happened to their sons? Did a wife go on forever not knowing where her husband was? How can a man with a home, a family and a life go unknown?

There were so many questions that those rows of white crosses brought up in my mind. As I walked into a tiny chapel I read on the wall, “Think not only upon their passing, but remember the glory of their spirit.” My questioning thoughts were silenced for a moment. I just stood silently for a while to apologize and thank all of those soldiers lying under their neat white crosses.