Who Today Will Make “The Ultimate Sacrifice”?
Today’s world which is increasingly divided between citizens who are willing to fight and, if necessary, die for their values and those who are not.
An alarming number of Jewish soldiers who fell in the World Wars were mistakenly buried beneath Latin crosses. Operation Benjamin, an extraordinary initiative, identifies their graves and rededicates them with marble Stars of David. At a recent gathering of Operation Benjamin in Verdun, France, honoring Jews who fell fighting in both the U.S. and German armies, I spoke about what it means today to give one’s life for one’s country.
In June 1944, my father landed on Normandy Beach.
I often wonder what it’d be like to sit rocking in that landing craft and counting down the seconds until he entered the hell of World War II. I wonder who was with him in that boat—the farmer from Alabama, the merchant’s son from Vermont, the Ivy League literature student, tough street kids from Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Jersey City.
And I wonder what they were thinking—fear, of course, and not only of being killed or wounded but of letting their buddies down—but also about the great mission on which they were about to embark.
