Prologue

"Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."

~Abraham Lincoln~

June 11, 1944

Somewhere in Normandy

I never dreamed that it would be this hard. I knew something of what war was like, but I wasn't prepared for this. I feel like we've entered the gates of hell.

The young soldier gripped his pencil with shaking fingers, gritting his teeth in agony as fresh pain ripped through his shoulder. The words were smudged with dirt and tears, the paper crumpled from riding in his pocket for days. He had written the letter in snatches, a few minutes here, a few minutes there, sitting in the middle of dusty battlefields when the firing let up enough to give them a few moments of rest.  But it never ceased completely.

Night and day, day and night, the weary hours blending together in a shapeless mass of existence. The night sky was forever lit with the roaring flames of France on fire. And still they marched on. Behind them, the bloody sands of Normandy, before them, the terrifying unknown of the German army with all its evil power and a battle that grew harder every day. 

They had broken through the front lines. But this was no victory march. If they didn't get through to the end, their cause would be lost. Everything they had fought and died for, gone. Freedom wiped from half the face of the earth. 

They told me, the soldier went on writing. That I've won a silver star for what I did on Omaha that day. Why, I don't know. I don't deserve it. I didn't do anything more than what anyone else did. All I did was succeed in not getting killed. Or crippled. 

I don't want the star. I wish I could refuse it. I know that every time I look at it, I'll feel sick, just remembering what happened that day. Those around me dying… and I…. Not able to do anything about it. Men that I've fought with for years... they've become like brothers to me. To see them falling under German fire… torn to shreds… I wish I could explain to you how terrible it truly is. 

I don't know why they call me a hero. I'm not a hero. I don't reckon any of us are. We only came here to do our duty. And that duty is to fight. For our people and our country… and the people of the world. To not let freedom die. And, God help us, we will succeed. No matter how hard the duty that lies before us.