When I really step back and look at my life, I have two passions outside of my family. Like everyone of us in the National Pickleball League, pickleball has supplanted a host of other activities in my life. I was once an avid golfer, with a claim to fame of hitting my woods right handed and irons left-handed (with a hole-in-one from both sides of the ball). Now, I play a few times a year. I’d rather pickle. I love my chosen career as a photographer, but if I could do it all over again, I’d probably try to make a living in pickleball. It’s all consuming.
My second passion, however, will never take a back seat to anything by my family (though even that my wife might roll her eyes a bit). And that’s the work I’ve done over the past 17 years photographing our nation’s veterans on the battlefields on which they fought and bled. Through a Denver based charity called The Greatest Generations Foundation (www.tggf.org), I have documented the return of hundreds of veterans back to their battlefields, including France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan, Iwo Jima, Guam, Saipan, Tinian, Pearl Harbor, England and more recently, Vietnam. Normandy, however, holds a very special place in my heart. Over those 17 years, I’ve been back to Normandy probably in excess of 40 times. I’ve lost track.
Last week, I had the privilege of going back yet again, this time to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. Our group consisted of seven WWII veterans (ranging in age from 99-104), two Korean War veterans and eight Vietnam War veterans, including Medal of Honor recipient Barney Barnum (the Navy is about to launch a destroyer bearing his name!) and let me tell you, we traveled to Europe in style via TWO crossings. The first was onboard the iconic grand dame of the seas, the Queen Mary 2, Cunar’s flagship ocean liner.
This was our seventh time crossing the Atlantic on the Queen Mary 2. Over our seven days from New York City to Southampton, England, our veterans gave talks to an average of about 600 guests on their personal war experience. From our 104 year old D-Day, Omaha Beach veteran, Steve Melnikoff, to tour three Vietnam War nurses, to our Korean War veteran who was one of the Frozen Chosin, to our 101 year old Navy Wave named Marie, who supported the war effort by honing pistons for our military’s blimp fleet, every day the guests were treated to riveting talks.
Those were the days… by night, our vets stormed the hardwood of the Queens Room dancing with possibly hundreds of lucky partners. At 11pm, we’d move our party to the ship’s night club, G32 where the vets would boogie down until well after midnight. Let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen an almost 105 year old rocking out in a silent disco!
After two days in England, we took our second crossing; this time, a much shorter six hour crossing across that same English Channel that several of our WWII vets crossed to get to France, 80 years earlier. Thankfully no one was shooting at us and we even enjoyed a delicious breakfast onboard, though our vets DID need passports this time, unlike 80 years ago (always one of their favorite jokes).
In France, we made our way to The Greatest Generations Foundation’s chateau called La Maison de la Liberation (The house of the liberation) in the first village liberated on D-Day, Sainte Marie du Mont. This house was literally the German Headquarters for the Utah Beach sector on June 5. On the walls of the dining room, you can still see German artwork depicting life during the occupation and in the salon, an iron eagle and swastika. The house is now a French historic landmark and home away from home for our honored veterans. Also in France, two double amputees of the war in Afghanistan joined our group as part of the TGGF mission of connecting generations of warriors. More on them later.
On June 6, under the watchful gaze of the German officers painted on the dining room walls who inhabited the house 80 years plus one day prior, our veterans ate their eggs and bacon in peace before making our way under police escort to the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach. It’s at this point that I started to feel a bit like Forrest Gump (who was actually there - Tom Hanks, that is). I found myself inside a tent on top of the cliffs towering over Omaha Beach with our president, photographing him with our WWII veterans and Barney, our MOH recipient! We met senators, four stars, movie stars and more. Next, I found myself on stage directly behind the US and French presidents and I started getting texts from college friends saying they’d seen me on the NBC nightly news!
But while all that was cool, I can take or leave the massive ceremonies where politicians bloviate just to hear their own voice. No, every day I’ll choose the days where we would walk along the landing beaches or through the hedgerows and just listen to the vets tell their stories. Or the same thing for a bar in our village or the church in Sainte Mere Eglise. Those moments of quiet reflection between brothers-in-arms is what our mission is all about.
I would fill ten pages telling everything that happened while in Normandy, but I will leave you with this. On our last day before returning home, Steven Melnikoff, our 104 year old bad-ass D-Day veteran, decided he wanted to go see his landing beach one more time. So we scrapped our plans and made our way to Omaha Beach. After a chat with a group of school kids from Indiana at his 29th Infantry Division Memorial, Steve made his way down to the sand. He chatted briefly with two French re-enactors in full American Army uniforms who insisted he take a ride in their perfectly restored Willies army jeep. After the ride, Steve quietly walked away from the people and toward the water lapping up at the shore. I was down the beach maybe 50 yards shooting portraits of everyone with our Navy vet, Don Cobb, when I looked back and saw Steve. I can only imagine what was going through his mind as he stared into the water at his feet. I quickly snapped a few frames before Steve looked up and started walking down the beach toward me.
As he passed me I looked to see where he was going. Instantly, I knew. Kevin Brewington, our Afghan vet who lost both legs above the knee and much of his right arm, had abandoned his wheelchair at the top of the stairs, climbed down and scooted his way to the water’s edge. Steve walked up and took Kevin’s hand. It was one of those moments you simply can’t script. I photographed the two distant generations of warriors, connecting on the sand of a beach that had once been awash in blood; the same blood that bonded those two on that day 80 years later.
Thank you for reading about my passion to preserve the legacy of our country’s heroes. If you’d like to learn more or to donate in support of our mission, go to www.tggf.org. And feel free to ask me more about it while we’re on our own field of battle, the pickleball court! I mean, we have “body bags,” right? Not quite the same, but still…
