Open Range: D-Day's Everyday Heroes

The world remembered the bravery of the men and women of D-Day this past weekend and we were again reminded of the heroes among us. One of them is my Dad. That's him in the helmet with arms crossed, looking tough, or probably just acting tough. He’s comfortably retired now and at age 86 is finally talking about his humble role in saving the world from the Nazi’s.

Staff Sergeant Al Casey and the 631^st Ordinance Ammunition Company came ashore on June 12^th at Utah Beach, six days after the horrors of the landings at Omaha Beach that most of us have seen depicted in “Saving Private Ryan.” His quiet arrival did not compare to the awful battle that had taken place earlier. The beachhead was established and the Allied machinery was in motion to crush the Reich.

“There was a metal grate in the water and we climbed down off the Liberty ship and you walked about ankle deep across that metal grip to the beach,” he explained. “There was a road cut up between the dunes and you went up between those dunes and the first thing you saw was … like an acre of ground and a perimeter of barb wire with MP’s guarding it with submachine guns. The whole place was all green-suited German prisoners. A lot of them were Rumanians and Poles. Those prisoners were the happiest people in town I guarantee you. If they weren’t they were stupid. For them, the war was over and for us it was just getting started.”

“Then we went to staging area, which was a just like a big ball field between the hedgerows. We thought we’d be the only ones there. So, instead of digging in, we slept on the ground and under vehicles, whatever. Slept like a log. When we woke up in the morning, that damn area was full of trucks, jeeps, vehicles. Then we went over to St. Mere Eglise to sort ammunition.”

This war like all wars is the most serious of human business and my father was witness to what the Supreme Allied command was prepared to do to win if necessary. “We had gas there – we had gas and smoke and mustard. If the Germans used gas, we had it. It was stacked underground.”

The gas stayed there – never used. No one would take a shot at Dad until later in but within a week of landing, he saw war.

“They (the Luftwaffe) came over and bombed the depot and killed 37 men – none of our guys. So we had to go out and recover all the stacks of ammo. The thing burned all day. At night they brought in tanks with bulldozer blades on the front and put it out.”

“Medics come up and laid a big tarp out and as we found pieces of the guys we brought it over and put it in the tarp. There was elbows. There was hands. Then I found a guy, just a torso, on the side of a pile of (land) mines. And I found out he was a lieutenant that used to be with our outfit - a real athletic guy. He would get up in the morning and run and lift weights. That stack of mines was on fire and they said he went over and tried to kick it over and it blowed up leaving his torso, just red and black. I don’t even remember that lieutenant’s name – he was a good guy.”

It took four or five days to resort the ammo and complete the human recovery. “We were more or less stunned. It wasn’t a fun thing. It was work you had to do. We worked 12-hour shifts. Just like the mill.”

Each June 6 as we bestow rightful honors on the ordinary people like my Dad who completed the extraordinary act of saving the world, we usually don’t account for the fact that D-Day was the beginning of a long campaign. Al Casey and his fellow GI’s would fight many more times before it all ended. My Dad earned three bronze stars and a campaign medal for his service in the Northern France and Rhineland campaigns.

Each Christmas Day he proudly remembers his holiday celebration in 1944, staying at his post during the Battle of the Bulge as the Panzers advances. While others were retreating, Dad ate his Christmas Dinner of cold rations in can while sitting, later sleeping, ont he steps of a hotel in Charleville, Belgium.

I've only seen him celebrate once, during a 2004 visit to the then new World War II Memorial in Washginton, D.C.

"That's ours," he said proudly as we walked toward the monument on the mall. "It took them a long time to honor what a lot of good boys did over there."

As D-Day was the beginning, so was the war. Dad mustered out in 1945, came home, married my Mom and raised a family. He learned to change careers before it was fashionable, giving up carpentry work in a steel mill to sell insurance, then going back to college after retirement.