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“PROLOGUE – Twenty seven acres of headstones fill the American military cemetery at Carthage, Tunisia.

“There are no obelisks, no tombs, no ostentatious monuments, just 2,841 bone-white marble markers, two feet high and arrayed in ranks as straight as
gunshots.

“Only the chiseled names and dates suggest singularity. Four sets of brothers lie side by side. Some 240 stones are inscribed with thirteen of the saddest words in our language:

‘Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God.”‘

There is a long limestone wall containing the names of another 3,724 men still missing, and a benediction: “Into Thy hands, 0 Lord.”

And so it was, and is, on so much sacred ground across all the killing fields of all the wars in which our nation has been a part. To fully comprehend the enormity and tragedy of it all is not possible. Ineffable sorrow.

My source for this column is the first volume of Rick Atkinson’s “Liberation Trilogy,” titled “An Army at Dawn.”

The second volume, “The Day of Battle,” chronicles the campaigns in Sicily and Italy.

The third volume, “The Guns at Last Light,” recounts ”the climactic struggle for Western Europe, from the eve of Normandy through Germany’s surrender.”

I have read all three volumes, of course. Informative, interesting, inspiring, depressing and more. Much more. The words I have used are inadequate. An understatement.

Most Americans would consider all of this ancient history, if they even consider it at all. Some probably would opine that I am compulsive about my interest in WWII, an obsession at the very least. Maybe so.

Let me thank you, friends, for reading today’s journalistic endeavor. Your readership is appreciated.

May we all have a peaceful weekend, and may the coming week be a good one for each of you.

APROPOS -“Having little or no interest in one’s nation’s history is an indication
of intellectual indolence.”
-Anon