On a bright, windy day in March 2000, I stood on a cliff in France looking down at Omaha Beach, site of some of the bloodiest fighting on D-Day, through the firing slit of a preserved German bunker. My view of the beach was so clear and unimpeded that I could read the writing on the sweatshirt of a boy strolling on the sand a hundred feet below. There had been a storm the night before, …showed first 75 words of 1314 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1314 total…time."17 At the end of the movie "Saving Private Ryan," an elderly World War II veteran visits the American cemetery at Colleville-Sur-Mer, near Omaha Beach. Weeping, he kneels before the grave of a young officer responsible for saving his life, and says, "I have tried to live my life the best I could. I hope that was enough. I hope at least in your eyes I've earned what all of you have done for me."