Memorial Day Reflections submitted by Michael Furchert, European Tour Director with Joshua Expeditions.

Picture yourself on the landing craft. It is June 6, 1944. You are a part of the 1st infantry of the United States Army. It’s the first time you will see combat. On the previous night, you wrote your will. Now you hear ship cannon fire from behind and machine gun fire coming at you.

The friend next to you is shivering and seasick. You can see the fear on his face.

The boat has come to a stop. Within seconds the door begins to open. Before the first man is off the ship, bullets rip in, striking your friend next to you. Moments later you are up to your neck in water; your equipment is pulling you down but you press on for the shore. With every step, you hear the sounds of chaos and war. You hit the sand and take cover behind anything you can find. Men are screaming, yelling, crying out for their mothers as bullets fly past you from every direction. Your friends are bleeding and dying beside you.

You hear the beach master yell for you and the men to run toward the bluffs. An impossible feat! But since death is on the beach, you run…
Growing up behind the Berlin Wall I never learned about D-Day, the invasion of Normandy, or the involvement of the Americans in liberating Nazi Germany. In our East German schools, we were taught that the Russians liberated us. Therefore, we had to love them, learn their language, and embrace their Communist ideology. Today, living in America, I have the opportunity to lead students to many of the sites of World War II to explore what really happened and to discover history with them – history from a Christian perspective.

The brave young Americans who landed at Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, faced a nightmare and fierce resistance. Obstacles, land mines, and barbed wire stretched across the long, broad beach. At the end lay cliffs and bluffs filled with German soldiers and machine guns.

Back in America, President Franklin D. Roosevelt led the nation in prayer:

“Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith. They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.”

He could not have known how much the prayers were needed for the men on Omaha Beach.

As the first landing crafts’ doors opened, so did the German machine guns. Scores of men were killed as German bullets rained down on the helpless soldiers before they even made it out of the crafts.

The paratroopers that were flown in the night before to take out the German resistance had been dropped off target. They had drowned in lakes or wetlands; some did not have enough altitude to open their chutes, or they found themselves alone in the French countryside. Bombers had missed their targets, and many landing crafts had missed their landing sites. The German resistance remained untouched.

The men that did make it to the beach had nowhere to hide. The bombers had failed to make craters on the beach for the troops to take cover. That broad beach had become a death trap. One soldier stated, after his ordeal, “We were hiding behind anything the size of a golf ball.”

Eventually, the Americans found a way across the sand and scaled up the bluffs to attack the Germans from behind and from the side. By the morning of June 7th, Allied forces controlled 45 miles of the French coastline. However, victory came at a cost. It was the bloodiest one-day battle since America’s Civil War Battle of Antietam. Some 2,500 men lost their lives on Omaha Beach. They now rest there, at the American Cemetery, on liberated French soil. But the path to liberation was hard, and many paid with their lives.
A few months after the events of D-Day, on the other side of the trenches, stood my uncle, sixteen years old. Ordered to take up a gun, he was sent into a war he did not want to fight. His face reflected fear and horror; his legs were shaking; 80% of his company had been killed, much younger than him. In those months of the war, Hitler had pulled teenagers and kids into the battle, and they were just as afraid to die as their American liberators on the other side. When I lead Joshua Expeditions groups on WWII Remembrance Tours and to the beaches of Normandy, I ask them to ponder the deeper complexities of war.

While standing at the place where so many lives were lost, many students ask, “Why does God allow evil, war, and suffering?” Already King David had called out to God: “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?” (Psalm 13:1-2)

Even Christ himself cried out to the Father, “Why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:33-34) Then he died on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. But He also rose and offered us an answer: “In this world you will have trouble,” he said, “But take heart! I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD.” (John 16:33, emphasis added)

This is why, as Christians, we believe that Peace is not just the absence of war. Peace is the presence of God! As Christian tour directors at Joshua Expeditions, we want to follow Christ’s calling to build God’s kingdom and to carry God’s Peace into the world. Exploring the world’s history helps bring an understanding of different cultures and helps us see life from different perspectives.
On this weekend before Memorial Day, we celebrate the men and women who offer themselves to military service – even unto death – in order to defend freedom. We honor the memories of those who have been lost in the fight, and we offer our gratitude for the freedoms we have been given. Most of all, we remember the ultimate freedom that exists only through a relationship with Jesus Christ.

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. For the old order of things has passed away.” Everything will be made new. (Revelation 21:4-5)