From an email this morning. Here's a link, the photos are the entire exercise and need to be seen. June 6th Normandy Etched in Sand - OL Pasttime Excellent history lesson: A large percentage of our country doesn't know of or care about Normandy. My guess is it has been removed from the text in history books. A few weekends ago, British artist Jamie, accompanied by numerous volunteers, took to the beaches of Normandy with rakes and stencils in hand to etch 9,000 silhouettes representing fallen people into the sand. Titled The Fallen 9000, the piece is meant as a stark visual reminder of those who died during the D-Day beach landings at Arromanches on June 6th, 1944 during WWII. The original team consisted of 60 volunteers, but as word spread nearly 500 additional local residents arrived to help with the temporary installation that lasted only a few hours before being washed away by the tide. 9,000 Fallen Soldiers Etched into the Sand on Normandy Beach to Commemorate Peace Day. What is surprising is that I saw nothing about this here in the US. An overseas friend sent it with a note of gratitude for what the US started there.
Yea, its sad that the News media here in the states cant even pull the thumb out long enough the honor the very men who gave there lives for all of us! Sad days for America, we have allowed these "people" to make a mockery of Reporting truth!
I'm going to try and find a link, the photos have to be seen. LINK: June 6th Normandy Etched in Sand - OL Pasttime
My father fought first in the European theater than was shipped to the Pacific. Sit and think a minute on how many fathers, brothers, sons died on all sides of that war. Although the exact quote is considerably longer, it was boiled down to: "war is hell." It is. Go read the entire, exact quote. I had two brothers go in during Nam (another forgotten war, except for Kent State. Watch the PBS documentary about that, quite good) and I graduated just in time to get told I would not be shipped out, so I did my years of gov't service not in the armed forces. That still didn't stop me from being shot during the Gulf War however, and I had quite number of friends (and one brother) in uniform there, so don't try to impress me with how tough you are. I'm sure you are, but so are many others who were there too. "Is any man an island?" Go read that poem too.
I've been to Normandy and visited all the local sites in the area. What truly amazed me was Omaha beach because, in all honesty, I don't know how in the hell they did it. All that way and its wide open, not a scrap of cover for protection... I can't understand how any of them survived. Looking at those photos with the 9000 stencils truly brings home the price that was paid... The local French in the area truly remember and are appreciative unlike the rest of their country. The Dutch also remember and still are grateful and celebrate their liberation every year with the Nijmegen Four Day march. I always wanted to do that but never got around to it. No excuses. However, I did go to Arnhem and visited the war museum there, 6 years in the Netherlands and 14 years in Germany so I got lots of war museums, castles, and art galleries under my belt. EDIT: Geez, that first photo is scary...it must have been a nightmare.
