This is the peaceful rural landscape of the beginning of autumn in northern Michigan. Tonight I watched more of the PBS series on World War II. In which (the phrase used in Winnie the Pooh chapter headings) the summer fields of Normandy were fought for in terrible bloody struggle. The hedgerows were as if made to hide gun emplacements and provide concealment from aerial attack. And the people who lived there just had to manage. It is terrifying to think about being in the middle of such a thing.
My senior year in college I was in a special history program focused on the invasions. We actually toured the various sites, and were guided around by a set of locals, many of whom had lived through the events.
ReplyDeleteThe most startling thing was how sanguine they were about things like the leveling of Caen by allied bombers (which more or less didn't need to happen). They were just grateful to be free of the Germans, and aware of just how much undirected stupidity and waste is war.
Brian