D-Day

Seventy years ago today my father was camped in a forest in England with his army outfit trying to put their gear back together.  A few days before they had been ordered to the docks for the D-Day invasion.  Their trucks had been waterproofed (I’m not sure how they did that) and everything was ready when a buzz-bomb hit them and “blew everything to smithereens!” (A direct quote from my dad I have never forgotten.)  The irony is not lost on me that that bomb may, in fact, have saved his life.

There are a few old soldiers, sailors and flyers left who were there; all old now but probably little more than teenage boys at the time.  There are still more who remember reading or listening to the news, wondering, worrying, praying for brothers, friends, sweethearts.  I am none of those.  I was not yet born, and had it not been for that buzz bomb, perhaps might never have been.  Yet, despite the fact that I was not there, it seems to me something should be said today, something reported or recorded in What’s the Good Word.  Some recognition should be given to those who fought and those who died so we and others might live.

When I was a child visiting my grandparents in Wiarton, my grandmother would often stop at a little house down the street and visit with Mrs. Meredith.  Mrs. Meredith lived alone in a tiny house on the edge of a hill on Gould Street.  There are only two things more I remember about Mrs. Meredith: she was not very tall, and her only son, her only child, went off to fight in the war and was killed.  Its not much for me to remember, but the memory must have been almost more than she could carry.

I was born a mere three years after WWII ended.  I remember people talking about things “during the war”, and to a child it seemed like it must have been something that happened a long time ago.  It wasn’t.  It isn’t.  And what is worse, for many people today war still rages.  While I sit in relative peace and try to coax these few inelegant words out through my fingertips, in many places fighting continues.  Will it ever end?  Will it never end?

So today, lets think about those teenagers who might have been our uncles, friends and neighbours.  Lets think too about those for whom war still rages…and let us pray for peace and justice for all.

Posted by Carman

6-6-14

In memory of 6-6-44.