Lyn Nofziger's 84th Birthday

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Lyn Nofziger’s 84th Birthday Current mood: thoughtful Category: Life Friday, June 6th, 2008, marked the 64th Anniversary of Allied invasion of Normandy. Today, June 8th, 2008, would have been my friend Lyn Nofziger's 84th birthday. We lost him two years ago to cancer. I hate cancer. A lot. I shall miss him, every day, as long as I live. I miss so many things about him that if I tried to tell you about it, this would be as long as one of my Obama rants. Lyn was at Omaha Beach on D-Day. He landed in the Dog Red sector. It was not like a Hogan's Heroes episode either. He "celebrated" his 20th birthday somewhere in Normandy. Lyn would not talk about the war. I know he was wounded; he lost some fingers. He was hospitalized. It was bad enough that he missed all the fun "Band of Brothers" good times. When "Saving Private Ryan" was released, it became fashionable to talk about the war, especially D-Day, to any veteran. All that hype bugged Lyn, which is why I referred to the film as "Saving Private Lyn." But he would not tell me nuthin' about the war. Never mind my lifelong interest in the war. Never mind I didn't know anyone else to talk to about D-Day. For this reason, I'm sure he saw and had to do some unpleasant things. It's a cliche, but guys who are anxious to talk about the blood and guts, and the Germans they killed, or the paper cuts they received and whatnot, were usually stationed in the library at Fort Dix. Barney Fife claimed that was his contribution to whipping the dreaded Hun. Lyn hated talk of the "greatest generation." He advised me that the generation that invented Viagra was the greatest generation. He was funny like that. Like most of those heroes, he believed that any generation of Americans could and would "rise to any call, pay any price, and bear any burden" (and I'm borrowing language from somebody). Eventually, Lyn agreed to answer one question a year for me about the war, at Thanksgiving, when we were always together. That was it. No follow up. Naturally, I wasted my question one year when I asked him if he'd gotten any Germans. He told me he killed 20,000, including 8 generals and a field marshall. He was prolly lyin', though. I think he knew how proud I was to know him, and for so many reasons. I knew him as a celebrity, an influential and valued advisor to the President, a mentor, and as a man who believed in fighting to right a wrong. I thought of him as a father figure in many ways, which was cool, because he had about 750,000 friends who loved him. I was one of those lucky people. He was someone I trusted with things I wouldn't tell anyone else. He made me feel better. He encouraged me. He advised me. He helped me land some terrific jobs. He helped me get into law school. He made fun of me for buying a Rolex watch, because his $10 Timex did the same thing. He corrected my grammar. He wrote poems for me on my birthdays. He loved Ted Williams and baseball. He read the comics before the bad news. He was the coolest guy I've ever met. His sense of humor was unique and priceless. He'd let me work his crossword puzzle when I visited. He flew out for my law school graduation. He always took my Mother and me to a super expensive and fancy restaurant when she visited me in Washington. As I said on the anniversary of his death in March, "you never know how much you're going to miss someone until you miss him." It sucks when people die, but what a blessing it was to have him for almost 82 years. I knew him for around 30 of those years. I'm proud of his service in Normandy on that "day of days." I'm glad he made it through it. (So was he, he'd tell me) I'm glad he went on to find and marry Bonnie, the love of his life. I'm glad he had two swell daughters, Susie and Glenda. Cancer got Susie in 1989. Glenda, his younger daughter, has two fine sons, a daughter-in-law, and a granddaughter. She is a teacher in South Carolina, but she doesn't get to spank the kids, unfortunately. He lived a wonderful life. He faced ordeals, tragedy and triumph. He couldn't have a dog, as Bonnie was allergic. He learned life's most important lesson: there is a merciful God, He is in charge, and He has a plan. Good things happen because God has our back, and He likes us. Bad things are often allowed to happen so we'll learn to love and trust in God, and so we can "grow." Perhaps pray now and then, as God enjoys the attention, and prayer sets us up to accept whatever happens. Lyn prayed, and accepted God's will, because he knew that his Redeemer lived. I recall telling him I was mildly annoyed with the good Lord because of the cancer. Lyn advised me in no uncertain terms that God didn't need my approval, and God would survive even if I was mad at Him for awhile. So I quit blaming God. That's goofy anyway. I get sappy, sentimental and cheesy about Lyn, and he would hate that. He would hate that I will always take on about him. In his honor, and in honor of the men who were part of the invasion, I'm posting a transcript of President Reagan's remarks at the 40th Anniversary observance in 1984 in Normandy. Lyn and Bonnie were there. He turned down an opportunity to fly over with the President on Air Force One, because things like that either bored or annoyed him. Also, he was more interested in taking Bonnie on a trip to England. He wanted to show her the sites he remembered from those days. They were in the audience, though, at Point Du Hoc, in a place of honor. As much as Lyn disliked that stuff, I'm glad he was there. He deserved the accolades, and so did the other fellas who were there at the ceremony. It was, in my opinion, one of Reagan's best speeches. Top 10, for sure. So Happy Birthday to Lyn. I still wish the Germans had won; they had spiffier uniforms. The allies cheated, because they cracked the German code. You gotta fight fair, but I digress. *** Remarks of President Reagan at Point Du Hoc in commemoration of the 40th Anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1984 >>We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue. Here in Normandy the rescue began. Here the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history. We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance. The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers--the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms. Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there. These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war. Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your "lives fought for life . . . and left the vivid air signed with your honor.'' I think I know what you may be thinking right now--thinking, "We were just part of a bigger effort; everyone was brave that day.'' Well, everyone was. Do you remember the story of Bill Millin of the 51st Highlanders? Forty years ago today, British troops were pinned down near a bridge, waiting desperately for help. Suddenly, they heard the sound of bagpipes, and some thought they were dreaming. Well, they weren't. They looked up and saw Bill Millin with his bagpipes, leading the reinforcements and ignoring the smack of the bullets into the ground around him. Lord Lovat was with him--Lord Lovat of Scotland, who calmly announced when he got to the bridge, "Sorry I'm a few minutes late,'' as if he'd been delayed by a traffic jam, when in truth he'd just come from the bloody fighting on Sword Beach, which he and his men had just taken. There was the impossible valor of the Poles who threw themselves between the enemy and the rest of Europe as the invasion took hold, and the unsurpassed courage of the Canadians who had already seen the horrors of war on this coast. They knew what awaited them there, but they would not be deterred. And once they hit Juno Beach, they never looked back. All of these men were part of a rollcall of honor with names that spoke of a pride as bright as the colors they bore: the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Poland's 24th Lancers, the Royal Scots Fusiliers, the Screaming Eagles, the Yeomen of England's armored divisions, the forces of Free France, the Coast Guard's "Matchbox Fleet'' and you, the American Rangers. Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet, you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief; it was loyalty and love. The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge--and pray God we have not lost it--that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt. You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you. The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They thought--or felt in their hearts, though they couldn't know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4 a.m., in Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying, and in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell. Something else helped the men of D-Day: their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer he told them: Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we're about to do. Also that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.'' These are the things that impelled them; these are the things that shaped the unity of the Allies. When the war was over, there were lives to be rebuilt and governments to be returned to the people. There were nations to be reborn. Above all, there was a new peace to be assured. These were huge and daunting tasks. But the Allies summoned strength from the faith, belief, loyalty, and love of those who fell here. They rebuilt a new Europe together. There was first a great reconciliation among those who had been enemies, all of whom had suffered so greatly. The United States did its part, creating the Marshall Plan to help rebuild our allies and our former enemies. The Marshall Plan led to the Atlantic alliance--a great alliance that serves to this day as our shield for freedom, for prosperity, and for peace. In spite of our great efforts and successes, not all that followed the end of the war was happy or planned. Some liberated countries were lost. The great sadness of this loss echoes down to our own time in the streets of Warsaw, Prague, and East Berlin. Soviet troops that came to the center of this continent did not leave when peace came. They're still there, uninvited, unwanted, unyielding, almost 40 years after the war. Because of this, Allied forces still stand on this continent. Today, as 40 years ago, our armies are here for only one purpose--to protect and defend democracy. The only territories we hold are memorials like this one and graveyards where our heroes rest. We in America have learned bitter lessons from two World Wars: It is better to be here ready to protect the peace than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent. But we try always to be prepared for peace; prepared to deter aggression; prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms; and, yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation. In truth, there is no reconciliation we would welcome more than a reconciliation with the Soviet Union, so, together, we can lessen the risks of war, now and forever. It's fitting to remember here the great losses also suffered by the Russian people during World War II: 20 million perished, a terrible price that testifies to all the world the necessity of ending war. I tell you from my heart that we in the United States do not want war. We want to wipe from the face of the Earth the terrible weapons that man now has in his hands. And I tell you, we are ready to seize that beachhead. We look for some sign from the Soviet Union that they are willing to move forward, that they share our desire and love for peace, and that they will give up the ways of conquest. There must be a changing there that will allow us to turn our hope into action. We will pray forever that some day that changing will come. But for now, particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it. We are bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We're bound by reality. The strength of America's allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe's democracies. We were with you then; we are with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny. Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.'' Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their value [valor], and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died. Thank you very much, and God bless you all. *** And Lyn is likely working a crossword puzzle with the Baby Jesus. Prolly has a little dawg, too. RPH, Esq., European American ©Randall P. Hodge, Esq., and Morningwood Enterprises, LLC