“What I did on my Summer Vacation – 2019"
I went to the beach. But not how you might think. Visiting France and seeing the D-day landing beaches has been on my bucket list since I was old enough to read about it. Visiting Scotland and seeing the small town where my Grandpa Davidson grew up has been on my bucket list since I was old enough to sit on his lap and hear about it. Last month I managed to check both of them off the list. The trip was in the works for over a year, with the goal of participating in the GORUCK 75k Star Course to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the Allied landings. More on that later, but suffice it to say, the event was just the excuse to make the trip happen in the first place.
Scotland was great, and I got to see the town of Saltcoats, where my Grandfather lived and went to school. Some of you know that this firms name is taken from KylesHill school. Not much was left from his time there. There was an apartment building where their house once stood, and a police station where his school had been. -We managed to take a picture with the last 2 columns from the old school gate. Everything else was gone. But it was a great sunny day (rare in Scotland!) and we did enjoy walking around town and having a pint. We also spend a few days in Edinburgh, touring the great castle, spending time with newly discovered cousins, and yes, we visited a distillery and sampled some outstanding single malts. After a brief 1 day stop in London to meet up with Tim and Dan, both college classmates and my rucking teammates on the RagTag Circus, we flew over to Caen to get ready for the event. Anne would be our driver, babysitter, and support crew before during and after the event itself, but she would not be doing any rucking. Because it’s a silly way to tour a country!
The GORUCK Star Course is a team event involving navigation and rucking (walking with a weighted backpack (rucksack). With the required event weight, plus supplies of food and water, our rucks weighed 35-40 lbs. We chose this one as a way to get together and to honor those who landed in Normandy 75 years ago. We had to navigate our way to 14 points of historical significance -Places like Pointe du Hoc, Utah and Omaha beaches, the Garden of The Missing, Sainte-Mere-Eglise. That one being particularly spooky walking through the pitch-black countryside of Northern France at night, into town and seeing a parachute hanging from the church tower. We managed to finish the 50ish miles just under the 20-hour time cutoff -without a lot of lingering aches and pains that you might expect from a handful of fifty-somethings with desk jobs.
A day or two later, I had an opportunity to help with one of the other 75th anniversary GORUCK events and felt honored that I could bring out the pipes and play for a couple of rangers who fought their way across Europe 75 years ago. There aren’t many of these men left, so it was really special to hear some of their stories firsthand. One of them looked like he could still get the job done today if you gave him a ladder and a rifle. The other offered to let us try on his Legion of Honor Medal. I told him “No thank you, sir. -It looks heavy”.
After some rest, Anne and I were able to get on a tour bus and take a more leisurely pace to see the sights. -During the ruck, we were on a very tight schedule to complete the course, so we didn’t spend any time to take things in. That was probably a good thing… because later in the week when I did have the time to stop, look around, and consider what went on in the early hours of June 6, it was more emotional than anticipated. I waited most of my life to see these places, and I was truly excited to finally have this opportunity. I don’t recall the exact moment, but it was sometime in elementary school at Gesu, when I first started reading about D-Day and the many selfless acts of bravery and courage by so many men. The men of the 82nd airborne, jumping out into the darkness, far off course, landing literally in the middle of town in Sainte-Mere-Eglise, the rangers, scaling the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc, and all those coming ashore in those landing craft in the early hours of the battle, before many of the German defenses had been silenced. Not to mention the American Cemetery above the cliffs at Omaha beach, with row after row of crosses or the star of David.
But now that I was actually there, more than once I found myself wanting to look away or walk away. And at times it was simply overwhelming. More than once Anne would be walking along and turn back to ask if I was coming to catch up with the tour group. I gave her some story about being sore from the ruck and just moving slow. But the truth is I was stopping to compose myself. Standing near the water at the edge of the English Channel, at low tide, seeing several hundred yards of flat, open sand between me and the nearest cover, looking up at the cliffs and surrounding terrain, and you think about what those first men ran into as they landed. Having read and heard about the allied bombs that fell several miles inland instead of on the beach ahead of the landings to take out the coastal defenses, the additional defenses from 75 years ago, including several hundred machine gun nests that were now long gone, and the concept of interlocking fields of fire -and then the ramp on the Higgins boat goes down... It is almost beyond comprehension. Those young men had unimaginable odds stacked against them. And they just. Kept. Coming. It has been almost a full month since then and I still can’t find the words to explain the emotional impact of this trip to my family and friends. Except grateful. I tell them, Be grateful. -And go visit those beaches.
Scotland was great, and I got to see the town of Saltcoats, where my Grandfather lived and went to school. Some of you know that this firms name is taken from KylesHill school. Not much was left from his time there. There was an apartment building where their house once stood, and a police station where his school had been. -We managed to take a picture with the last 2 columns from the old school gate. Everything else was gone. But it was a great sunny day (rare in Scotland!) and we did enjoy walking around town and having a pint. We also spend a few days in Edinburgh, touring the great castle, spending time with newly discovered cousins, and yes, we visited a distillery and sampled some outstanding single malts. After a brief 1 day stop in London to meet up with Tim and Dan, both college classmates and my rucking teammates on the RagTag Circus, we flew over to Caen to get ready for the event. Anne would be our driver, babysitter, and support crew before during and after the event itself, but she would not be doing any rucking. Because it’s a silly way to tour a country!
The GORUCK Star Course is a team event involving navigation and rucking (walking with a weighted backpack (rucksack). With the required event weight, plus supplies of food and water, our rucks weighed 35-40 lbs. We chose this one as a way to get together and to honor those who landed in Normandy 75 years ago. We had to navigate our way to 14 points of historical significance -Places like Pointe du Hoc, Utah and Omaha beaches, the Garden of The Missing, Sainte-Mere-Eglise. That one being particularly spooky walking through the pitch-black countryside of Northern France at night, into town and seeing a parachute hanging from the church tower. We managed to finish the 50ish miles just under the 20-hour time cutoff -without a lot of lingering aches and pains that you might expect from a handful of fifty-somethings with desk jobs.
A day or two later, I had an opportunity to help with one of the other 75th anniversary GORUCK events and felt honored that I could bring out the pipes and play for a couple of rangers who fought their way across Europe 75 years ago. There aren’t many of these men left, so it was really special to hear some of their stories firsthand. One of them looked like he could still get the job done today if you gave him a ladder and a rifle. The other offered to let us try on his Legion of Honor Medal. I told him “No thank you, sir. -It looks heavy”.
After some rest, Anne and I were able to get on a tour bus and take a more leisurely pace to see the sights. -During the ruck, we were on a very tight schedule to complete the course, so we didn’t spend any time to take things in. That was probably a good thing… because later in the week when I did have the time to stop, look around, and consider what went on in the early hours of June 6, it was more emotional than anticipated. I waited most of my life to see these places, and I was truly excited to finally have this opportunity. I don’t recall the exact moment, but it was sometime in elementary school at Gesu, when I first started reading about D-Day and the many selfless acts of bravery and courage by so many men. The men of the 82nd airborne, jumping out into the darkness, far off course, landing literally in the middle of town in Sainte-Mere-Eglise, the rangers, scaling the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc, and all those coming ashore in those landing craft in the early hours of the battle, before many of the German defenses had been silenced. Not to mention the American Cemetery above the cliffs at Omaha beach, with row after row of crosses or the star of David.
But now that I was actually there, more than once I found myself wanting to look away or walk away. And at times it was simply overwhelming. More than once Anne would be walking along and turn back to ask if I was coming to catch up with the tour group. I gave her some story about being sore from the ruck and just moving slow. But the truth is I was stopping to compose myself. Standing near the water at the edge of the English Channel, at low tide, seeing several hundred yards of flat, open sand between me and the nearest cover, looking up at the cliffs and surrounding terrain, and you think about what those first men ran into as they landed. Having read and heard about the allied bombs that fell several miles inland instead of on the beach ahead of the landings to take out the coastal defenses, the additional defenses from 75 years ago, including several hundred machine gun nests that were now long gone, and the concept of interlocking fields of fire -and then the ramp on the Higgins boat goes down... It is almost beyond comprehension. Those young men had unimaginable odds stacked against them. And they just. Kept. Coming. It has been almost a full month since then and I still can’t find the words to explain the emotional impact of this trip to my family and friends. Except grateful. I tell them, Be grateful. -And go visit those beaches.