Today is Veterans Day, when we celebrate all our military veterans. It began when the Armistice was signed ending WWI. At the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day, of the eleventh month of 1918. I had an experience a number of years ago that prompted me to write the following essay. I share it today in honor of all veterans.
A Common Bond
Leaves rustled softly as a light breeze drifted through the cemetery chapel, open to the air on two sides. This was the final stop on our tour of a WWII American Cemetery in southern France.
Our guide asked if there were any veterans of wars the USA had fought. “We would like you to participate in a wreath laying ceremony,” she said.
Three men stepped forward while the rest of our group of forty-two senior citizens gathered closer to the altar. Balwinder, our guide, offered the large bouquet of fresh flowers adorned with red, white and blue ribbons to one of the men. The trio walked slowly to the altar. Their shoulders were rounded, their hair thin and gray, their faces creased with the lines of time gone by.
The earlier breeze suddenly became a wind that brought fallen leaves to swirl around our feet and intensified the sound of ones fluttering on the trees that rimmed the chapel. Clouds blocked the sun as the three men stood shoulder to shoulder, the ribbons on the wreath dancing in the wind. One man stepped forward and gently placed the flowers in the center of the altar between a Christian cross and a tablet depicting a Star of David.
After the flower bearer stepped back in line with his fellow vets, all three snapped to attention and saluted the dead American soldier depicted in the large blue mosaic mural behind the altar. For one magical moment, they were three young military men, the years dropping away. Each had given part of himself to his country decades earlier.
Now, they were touring France and making a visit to the Rhone American Military Cemetery where nearly 900 American soldiers were buried after the invasion of southern France in 1944. The boats landed in Normandy in the north and, weeks later, in the Mediterranean Sea in the south. The cemetery, in Draguignan, near the Rhone River, is close to where these soldiers fought and fell. For various reasons, their families in America chose to have them buried in France instead of requesting that they be shipped home for burial.
Balwinder, a native of India and citizen of France, asked if we would sing our national anthem. Silence. Then a few people began slowly, others joined in. As our voices blended and grew stronger with the familiar words, the wind died and the clouds parted allowing the March sun to warm us once again.
My heart swelled, and a lump rose to my throat. I had to wipe a stray tear from my cheek, and in the silence that followed our singing, I studied the towering mosaic mural. The central figure was an angel, robed in blue, seated on a chair. In her arms, she cradled the body of a dead American soldier with a tenderness that is easily felt by the viewer. There were other, smaller figures on either side, but my gaze riveted on the angel and the soldier—he who represented so many who had given their lives. Young men who had everything to live for died fighting to free the people of France, then occupied by Nazi Germany. My mind told me that the angel was a piece of art, but my heart knew otherwise. As I gazed at her, I felt a presence and a warmth that could not have come from art. I didn’t want to leave the chapel but followed the others as they silently returned to our bus.
As we ate dinner on our river cruise ship that evening, I spoke with one of the men who had participated in the wreath laying ceremony. “What went through your mind today as you laid the flowers on the altar at the cemetery?”
He replied with no hesitation, needed no time to ponder and search for an answer. “Veterans have a bond that is never broken, no matter how many years have passed. There’s nothing else like it.” He smiled and added one more comment. “Only another vet fully understands.”
That veteran sat across the table from me, a retired railroad man who laughed a lot and still enjoyed life, but when he spoke about the common bond of vets, his face turned serious, and only he knew the rest of the wartime memories that lay quietly within.
By Nancy Julien Kopp (c)
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