Today is the 70th anniversary of D-Day. My
brother Tony sent me an email this morning. Here’s what he said:
My Dad called me last night and told me my Uncle, Ivan Cady, is in
Normandy for the 70th Anniversary of D-Day.
I am so happy for him. He just
had his 90th Birthday and was a member of the 2nd Ranger Battalion on
D-Day. He was one of the Soldiers who
scaled the cliff at Pointe Du Hoc on Omaha Beach under withering fire in the
early morning hours of 6 June 1944, during Operation Overlord.
He was a PFC at the time, if I remember correctly, and was awarded the
Bronze Star with "V" (Valor) device for his actions. His unit took a severe beating, but by 0900
they had accomplished their mission of taking out a large German artillery
piece, a number of other pillboxes, as well as multiple machine gun and mortar
emplacements.
He went on to fight in numerous other battles including time on the
front in the Black Forest in the winter of '44 and the Battle of the
Bulge.
He is absolutely an American Hero and the entire world owes him and all
the others who fought that day an enormous debt. And in my humble opinion, a debt that can
never be fully repaid.
So very proud of him.
He sent another email later with the following news report
from Wednesday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal, sent to him by his daughter
Jennifer. The article is by Karl Rove.
Ivan Cady is my uncle:
"The Still-Living Memories
of D-Day" - Ivan Cady was in the first wave on Omaha beach. He never expected to go home, 'except in a
box.'
One or two rely on walkers, some
brandish canes. But even those stooped with age stand erect when the national
anthem is played and sing with abandon. They are all in their late 80s or early
90s. But in the mind's eye, they are the young men who stormed Hitler's Atlantic
Wall early on June 6, 1944, and redeemed the world.
On Tuesday I met several dozen
American D-Day veterans as they embarked from Great Britain for France and the
70th anniversary celebration of the invasion of Europe. The men were the guests
of the Greatest Generation Foundation, whose founder, Tim Davis, introduced
them to me.
One of the veterans, Alfonso
Villa, had been trained in underwater demolition and was in the first wave on
Omaha Beach with the 237th Combat Engineers. The "mad ocean," he says,
swept him and three others through the wires, obstacles and mines, depositing
them on the shore. "Mother Nature saved us," he adds. "I was one
of the lucky ones."
Al Villa spent the rest of the
day clearing paths along the coastline, then fought through to the war's end in
Europe. He returned home to jobs at the post office and the Denver Mint, and
then spent decades in construction.
Born in Hazard, Ky., Wilson
"Bill" Colwell enlisted in 1943 by lying. He was only 15. He
parachuted with the 101st Airborne into Normandy shortly after 1:30 a.m. on
D-Day. The last words he heard before jumping were, "Look to the left,
look to the right, one of you will not see daylight." His aircraft missed
the drop zone by 20 miles.
Mr. Colwell and six others from
the 101st and 82nd spent five days fighting their way back to the beach,
traveling by night to avoid the retreating Germans. When his 200-man company
was sent back to England to train for the next major airborne offensive, 82 of
his comrades had been killed, captured or wounded.
Demobilized in late 1945, Bill
Colwell worked in Detroit for Ford before deciding to open a vocational school
in Colorado after vacationing in Denver.
Thomas J. Kilker Jr. was one of
D-Day's old men. He was 25 years old at the time of the invasion, having
enlisted just before Pearl Harbor. He flew one of the 52 gliders of the 437th
Troop Carrier Group, 85th Squadron. As he approached an open field before
daylight, with the lead craft below and slightly ahead of him, a
"reception committee" of Germans opened up.
The lead glider went left and
Mr. Kilker's went right. Both landed, though Mr. Kilker's glider broke apart in
the process. He was carrying Gen. Matthew Ridgeway's jeep and a driver, who was
injured in the landing. Mr. Kilker and his co-pilot rescued the driver and ran
into paratroopers from the 101st as they put distance between themselves and
the superior German force. To this day he wonders what happened to the
5-year-old French boy hurt in a firefight with a German sniper at an American
aid station.
Originally from a little town
south of Rochester, Minn., Ivan Cady was an 18-year-old private with the Second
Ranger Battalion that came ashore in the first wave at Omaha Beach. He was
"wet, cold, full of sand, and scared." No wonder. There was no place
to hide; his unit was stuck "in the shooting gallery." He will only
laconically describe what he saw as "horrible."
Mr. Cady says he never expected
to go home, "except in a box." He carries to this day a sense of
guilt for somehow surviving when so many others did not. When I asked how he
was doing Tuesday, he said good, but he didn't know how he would feel Friday,
the anniversary of the landing.
My hope is Ivan Cady and the
dwindling number of men who stormed the Normandy beaches in 1944 allow
themselves to accept what is due them, which is their nation's lasting
gratitude. "I think continually of those who were truly great,"
Stephen Spender begins a poem. "The names of those who in their lives
fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the fire's centre./ Born of the sun,
they travelled a short while toward the sun/ And left the vivid air signed with
their honour."
The achievements of these men
and their honor endure. By suffering the day's violence and terror and that of
the days that followed, they ended a madman's dream of a 1,000-year Reich and
made possible the survival of human freedom.
I wrote my brother just now: “Thank you so much for
sharing this. I am moved to tears...grateful, humbled and proud. Words fail...Love
you, Troy.”
He replied: “They do fail, don’t they? Love you too,
brother.”
Something tells me today I will observe the anniversary
in respectful silence.
Thank you, uncle Ivan. Thank you.
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