‘MY D-DAY REMEMBRANCES’

As I write today, on this the 68^th Anniversary of the D-Day Invasion of Normandy and Occupied Europe, with the strains of 1940’s big band music playing in the background, my thoughts go not only to the awesome sacrifice made by so many that fateful day, but also to two men of that era in particular… my Papaw Lelton H. Pittman and the Rev. Ralph H. Clark, Sr.

I don’t actually remember ever meeting Bro. Clark until February of ’99. Although, I’m pretty sure that I’d seen him a time or two back when I was a kid, seein’ how he and my Papaw were not only good friends but also because Bro. Clark was, for a great many years, the pastor at Mamaw and Papaw’s church. On this date, though, Bro. Clark was there to speak at my Papaw’s funeral, and, boy, did he ever speak. What he said, I will never forget.

Turns out, Bro. Clark and my Papaw’s friendship had started when they attended college together at Howard University, in Birmingham (now known as Samford University), where they both studied for the ministry. They also had something else in common, though… both men were decorated veterans of World War II. Now, these two men were very humble and never bragged about what they had done or been through, not even to their families, but they did, as fellow veterans have been known to do, swap war stories from time to time.

Bro. Clark had survived the Hell and horrors of the Normandy beach landings during the D-Day Invasion of Normandy, while my Papaw had fought the fanatical Japanese in the malarial jungles of the South Pacific. One was awarded a Silver Star, while the other received a Bronze Star, for their ‘gallantry in action’ and ‘heroic achievement’. Interestingly, though, each man was awed by what the other had gone through while fighting in the war. Neither considered that he could have done what the other had had to. Each saw the other as a hero.

Now, that wasn’t all that Bro. Clark had to say about my Papaw that day, but that’s the part that comes to my mind each June the 6^th. And nearly a decade and a half later, I still find it remarkable how the one who had participated in the D-Day beach landings with their heavily-defended fortifications felt what he had done paled in comparison with what a fellow soldier had had to go through while fighting in tropical jungles clear over on the other side of the world. They truly were The Greatest Generation.