What it takes to do the impossible

Some thoughts on young people, hard things, and Veterans Day

Eighty years ago this past June, more than 150,000 Allied troops landed in France in the largest amphibious invasion in history. The Americans and British and Commonwealth forces had been fighting the Nazi war machine in North Africa and Italy for years, but defeating Nazi Germany meant taking the fight to the heart of the continent. It was no secret that an invasion was coming—it took years and a massive international effort to build up the necessary forces and materiel in Britain. The only questions were when, where, and who.

It came on June 6, 1944 in an extraordinary air, land, and naval assault in Normandy. And it was accomplished almost entirely by young men—most were Americans, Brits, and Canadians, but the international coalition included Australians, Dutch, Czechs, French, Greeks, Poles, and others—and some of them shockingly young. Average ages are a bit hard to pin down, but it’s safe to estimate that the majority were in their early twenties, with many not even out of their teens.

Photo: National WWII Museum

Movies and series like Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers can provide a glimpse into the sheer terror and chaos of the harrowing battle, but I’m confident no fictional depiction or artistic portrayal can accurately portray the experience. I won’t try here. But as an author and as someone interested in history in general, when I read about historical events, I can’t help imagining what it must have been like.

A sentence or two in a history book or a journalist’s account may accurately convey the facts of a given feat: “Company A took the enemy’s fortified position in three hours with only two casualties.” Well done, Company A. But what did those soldiers go through for those three hours—a blip in my typical morning, but likely a lifetime on the battlefield? Who were those casualties? Were they lightly wounded, or maimed for life, or did they die on that hill or in a field hospital? Did they have wives or girlfriends anxiously waiting for news or dreading a telegram, parents praying for them, brothers fighting on another battlefield?

D-Day and the invasion of Normandy may be among the most famous events of World War II, but it’s only one of countless times in that war when young people were asked to do extraordinary, even seemingly impossible, things. Read about the tough combat in Italy, the assaults on Monte Cassino or the grim stalemate at Anzio, or the harsh jungle warfare in the Pacific, or the chaos and fierce fighting and miserable cold of the Battle of the Bulge, and you might begin to see the picture.

And all the while, keep in mind two things:

1. There’s nothing inevitable about the course of history. We know the good guys won World War II. But there was nothing inevitable about it. It required a certain combination of decisions, tactics, and strategy, yes. But it also required a nearly incomprehensible level of sheer human effort.

2. That human effort was performed by regular people like you and me. They were called on to do extraordinary things. They did them, because that’s simply what you did. Of course that generation, like any, included shirkers who avoided the call (whether it was to serve in the armed forces or on the home front in some capacity) for whatever reason, but that’s not who we’re talking about. The point here is that there were ordinary young men who did extraordinary things because they were asked to do them.

They came of age in unique times. They grew up during the Great Depression, many in hardscrabble poverty that would shock most of us today. Some of them loved joining up because the Army was the first time in their lives they’d gotten three square meals a day. (The food in the field would leave a lot to be desired, but that’s another story.)

Photo: FDR Presidential Library & Museum

No one ever taught them that life was meant to be easy. I imagine, if they heard anything on the matter, they were told that life was quite hard and you just had to get on with it. So that’s what they did. And when their country asked them to defeat the greatest evil that the modern world had ever seen, they did it.

I’ve been thinking about these ordinary young men who did extraordinary things a lot as I see the disturbing messages that some in our society are sending our young people today.

As

Frannie Block

reported in

The Free Press

earlier this week, Georgetown University announced before the election that on Wednesday, the institution that purports to mold tomorrow’s leaders would be offering a post-election “Self-Care Suite.” Here’s the agenda:

A cookie is what I gave my toddler as a special treat after she had to be brave and get her flu shot. She’s two.

While embarrassing, this was not a one-off. As Ms. Block reported after the election, this was only one example of a widespread phenomenon at universities across the nation, with professors canceling classes and exams and administrations offering a gamut of infantilizing “wellness” activities. And all this at, incidentally, the same institutions where students scream for “intifada” and cheer on Hamas and Hezbollah.

It’s easy to laugh or roll your eyes at this, but I think it’s a serious issue that deserves serious attention. No one is responsible for the environment in which he or she was raised. And I’m very glad and grateful that most of us in the West don’t face anything like the hard times of the Great Depression and World War II that forged that earlier generation that rose to extraordinary challenges.

But surely we face our own challenges today that need solving. Hopefully they won’t reach the levels of Depression or World War, but you never know. Whatever challenges we face require creativity, fortitude, and courage. I don’t think we’re fostering those virtues by encouraging young adults to respond to the “devastation” of an election result they don’t like by playing with Legos and coloring books.

As a society, we need to stop infantilizing young people. But there are things they can do to reject this infantilization while they wait for society to catch up. I don’t know if there are any young people reading this who want my advice, but this is what I would tell them:

Put down your phone and step away from your computer. Learn to make things with your hands. Plant a garden. Bake bread. Cook real food. Enjoy beautiful art, or even better, try your hand at making it. Do some work, whether for pay or as a volunteer, that leaves you so exhausted at the end of the day that all you can do is fall into bed. Get married and have children. Be part of a faith community. Volunteer in a physical place with other people in real life.

These are the things of the real world. And you'll find that when you have real commitments, they don't allow the space for infantilization, because the garden can't weed itself and the baby can't feed herself and the bills can’t pay themselves, and those are your jobs and it's time to get on with them—they won't wait. But at the same time, you'll find that you won't want or need that infantilizing "space," because you are living a real life, doing the things we were created to do, and that is beautiful and fulfilling.

Is that going to make us extraordinary? I don’t know. But I’ve read a lot of memoirs and interviews of veterans who fought and helped win WWII. I think they’d be the first to tell you that they were ordinary guys, that they weren’t anything special. But they were asking to take on an extraordinary responsibility, and they did it, and they saved civilization. So taking on ordinary responsibilities might be a good place to start.

To all veterans, thank you for your service.