How does it feel to be an American walking the eerie shores of Normandy, nearly seventy-five years since the invasion? What struck me most wasn’t imagining the ships landing or exploring the bunkers, it was the bombed terrain. Huge craters, now filled with grass and little yellow flowers blanket the cliffs above Omaha Beach. This kind of destruction has not been seen in the United States, and certainly not in the twenty-first century, so it is chilling to see. War is not a concept that my generation understands; a conversation about war does not extend far beyond the walls of a history class or a movie theatre. As we walked through the graveyards, my heart was filled with questions about the current state of our country. What would war look like on our soil? It certainly encouraged me to think more critically about the direction of political affairs in our nation.

I felt the consequences of conflict much more heavily than I ever could in the United States. Simultaneously, I felt proud of the intercontinental effort and precise organization of D-day. It was astounding how detailed the strategy. For example, we created a full scale “phantom army” with inflatable tanks, fake artillery and fictional radio traffic. However, I am sad that entire villages and towns in the northern French countryside were destroyed in blocking the Nazi reinforcements to the shores. I do not think many Americans are aware of the destruction they caused during this liberation. Freedom does come at a great cost, but did it need to be this great?