The Bridge Has Been Crossed
Passing Down the Lessons of D-Day
by
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The story of D-Day is full of bridges. Bridges bombed. Bridges burned or captured. Bridges crossed. In early June, 2009, sixty-five years after history’s greatest amphibious invasion to liberate Europe from the grip of Nazi Germany, another bridge was crossed.
This one generational.
Ten men who survived Operation Overlord to tell about it, each with his own stories, made the trip back to Normandy, France, to face the deep scars that have defined their lives, and to embrace their healing. Along the way, they shared their stories of bravery and hardship with twenty students from the College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Missouri, so that their battles and sacrifices will never be forgotten.
The ten D-Day veterans were the guests of the Greatest Generations Foundation, an organization based in Denver, Colorado, with a mission to honor combat veterans by taking them back to the battlefields of their youth and preserve their stories. The foundation’s founder is Timothy Davis, an Australian from Melbourne, whose ancestors fought with men from the United States, Britain and other Allied nations during both world wars. Davis’ grandfather fought in the World War II campaign for the island of New Guinea, a three-year effort to rid that strategic Pacific island of the Japanese. Two great uncles also fought in World War II.
After Davis moved to the United States in 1999, he settled in Denver and began talking to American veterans about their war experiences. He attended the 60th anniversary of D-Day, and found many Allied veterans had made the trip – but far fewer were Americans. Returning to Denver, he began asking veterans: Would they go back to their battlefields if they could? And could they afford to make the trip? In most cases, he found they would go back, but few could afford it.
So Davis began raising money in 2004 and took 15 veterans to the 60th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. Since then, his foundation has returned hundreds of veterans to the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific.
Before D-Day’s 65th anniversary, the Greatest Generations Foundation forged an educational partnership with College of the Ozarks, teaming veterans with college students. The foundation’s mission perfectly fits the core values that CofO faculty and administrators teach and promote every day.
Values such as duty, honor, patriotism, responsibility and hard work.
The college, dubbed by The Wall Street Journal as “Hard Work U.,” has been discouraging student debt since it was first established in 1906, first as a high school. CofO became a junior college in 1956, and a four-year college nine years later, providing a Christian-based education for students who otherwise couldn’t afford to go to college. Today, the students work for their education in jobs at more than 80 work stations around the 1,400-acre campus, including the college’s popular fruitcake and jelly kitchens (they bake one hundred fruitcakes a day), and a museum that includes the truck used in the “Beverly Hillbillies” TV show, donated by the series’ creator, Paul Henning. Students work the switchboard, in the dining halls, the library and a rustic lodge and conference hall called The Keeter Center that harkens back to the college’s early days in the Ozarks.
In Normandy, the experiences of the veterans from all corners of America taught the students that freedom doesn’t come cheaply – that often the blood of men and women must be spilled to repel the aggressions of a tyrant.
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In early June 2009, sixty-five years after history's greatest amphibious invasion at Normandy, France, ten American veterans who took part in the assault returned to the beaches of their youth to face the scars that have defined their lives. The men, from all corners of America, survived D-Day, June 6, 1944, that ultimately turned World War II against Nazi Germany. But now they were fighting new battles -- age and a gnawing worry that the war they fought to save the world from Adolf Hitler would one day be forgotten. Throughout the 11-day journey, the men visited their old air fields, towns they'd fought to liberate and museums with planes they'd flown and boats they'd steered onto the beaches. Along the way, they shared their stories of bravery and hardship with twenty students from the College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Missouri, so that their battles and sacrifices would long be remembered. With its rich writing and stirring photographs, The Bridge Has Been Crossed/Passing Down the Lessons of D-Day chronicles this instant and gratifying bond between two generations. The veterans were the same ages of these students when they put their lives on the line -- surviving when so many of their comrades didn't. Several of the veterans returned to France for the first time since the war's end, convinced that the French hadn't shown proper appreciation for their sacrifices. They soon learned they were wrong. Throughout Normandy, the French, English, Dutch and Belgians approached the men with handshakes and hugs. They asked for autographs. Or to be photographed with the ten men. The veterans returned home with a greater appreciation for what they had accomplished a long time ago. Their victories in 1944 changed the course of history. Now their lessons are in good hands -- these students charged with the responsibility to pass them on.
David Perlmutt has been a prize-winning journalist for 34 years, the past 29 at The Charlotte Observer in North Carolina. For more than 20 years, he has worked to preserve the stories of Carolinians who experienced war and survived to tell about it. In 1998, he co-authored another non-fiction book, (italicize the title) Charlie Two Shoes and the Marines of Love Company, the story of a lasting bond between a Chinese boy and company of U.S. Marines just after World War II. The book chronicles the boy's remarkable odyssey to freedom and the men who brought him to America decades later. In 2009, The Greatest Generations Foundation of Denver, Colorado, asked Perlmutt to accompany ten D-Day veterans and 20 college students to Normandy, France and write about the experience. What he witnessed was an extraordinary connection between two generations -- men in their final years sharing stories of bravery and hardship with these students. The result is this book. He lives in Charlotte with his daughter, Ainslie. John Riedy is a wedding and portrait photographer who has photographed weddings throughout the United States, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Europe. He has also worked with the Greatest Generations Foundation, donating his time and talent for the past three years. He has documented the return of U.S. veterans to Australia, Normandy, England, Holland, Okinawa, and Iwo Jima. Recently, he traveled to Iraq to help teach Iraqi journalists about western photojournalistic techniques. John lives in San Diego with his wife, Rebecca, and two sons, Jack and Cole.
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