I visited the Normandy beaches in 1993, a year before the fiftieth anniversary celebrations of the invasion. Beaches, of course, don't preserve anything very long. They are places where the ocean grinds everything to sand. Normandy's seashore is good for strolling; the water's too chilly for swimming and there are more rocks than sand. Most French holidaymakers go there to look at the ocean there rather than get into it.
But on the cliffs above the beach, at Pointe du Hoc, the signs of war were still clearly visible, even after half a century. The bombardment by naval guns trying to silence the German batteries atop the cliff left the entire area a moonscape of overlapping shell craters. Visitors have to stay on a raised wooden walkway because of the risk from unexploded shells.
Army Rangers climbed Pointe du Hoc seventy-five years ago. They scaled hundred-foot cliffs and held the top against German counterattacks for two days until troops from the landings below could link up with them. More than half of them were killed or wounded.
Ironically, the German heavy guns had been moved off the clifftops (though the site was still a vital observation post for the enemy). There's a tendency in modern history to focus on the importanct or decisiveness of a battle, and to dismiss the heroism of the Rangers.
But courage is courage. They accomplished their mission against ridiculous odds, overcoming setback after setback, and persevering in the face of horrifying losses. That's actual courage. Not posting something on Twitter that most of your readers already agree with, not engaging in a slightly risky sporting activity, not risking money on a venture without guaranteed profits. Courage is climbing up a cliff on a stormy morning, knowing that men are waiting at the top to kill you.
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