STUDENT SHOWCASE

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Veterans discuss D-Day on 58th anniversary

By Keren Rivas
The Shelby Star

Three rifle shots pierced the peaceful afternoon, booming in the distance while family and close friends gave a last goodbye to Fred Sigmon, a veteran from Vale, N.C., who served in World War II.

Included in the crowd were men who, like Sigmon, served in the military. They were there as friends. They were there because life has taught them to appreciate those who died in the battlefield and those who have lived long enough to tell their stories.

For the rest of us, today is a good day to remember the men and women who have served in the military and to reflect on an event that defined World War II - D-Day. On June 6, 1944, the allied forces invaded Normandy in one of the largest movements of armed forces in the history of the British and American armies. On that day, more than 150,000 men attacked the Normandy coast as part of Operation Overlord, prompting the fall of the Nazis and the end of the war.

"We were some of the first soldiers to arrive that day and we stayed for 54 days," Navy veteran M.L. Bowman said. "Around 10,000 men were killed that day. They are the real heores, those young boys that didn't come back, whose bodies were laying on those shores."

"I went in three days after D-Day. It was hard, especially having the Germans shooting at us," Army veteran Vernon Beaver said, "but somebody had to do it."

"I was in England three months before D-Day. I thought I was going to be in the invasion," said Hugh Hunt, who served as a medic in the 30th Division. "I didn't got to go until four days later. We thought that was going to be the end of all wars. We had to survive each day, one day at a time."

Lon Canipe Jr., another World War II veteran, knows the feeling. "We had so many people dying there," Canipe said. "They would die like flies."

After spending some time training in Africa, Canipe went to Italy. In 1944 he was captured by the Germans and taken into Germany, where he was held as prisoner for more than seven months.

"That was a rough time: hungry every day, no change of clothes, just a rack to sleep on or sometimes a cement floor," he said.

Despite the hardships they have endured, these former soldiers don't regret what they have done. "There were a lot of good people I met in Europe that I wouldn't have if I hadn't enlisted," Bowman said. "I had some good times."

"It's meant everything to me; it meant that I have done what my father and uncles had done before me Ð help make this nation be one nation under God," said retired Col. Horace DuBose of the Marine Corps Reserves.

"Every time they blew the taps, morning or evening, it'd put cold chills on you," said Paul H. Lynn, who served in Korea and Germany during the Cold War. "But I am glad I was part of it."

"I learned a lesson," Canipe said. "I went in when I was 19 years old, right after I finished high school, and I learned much more than I could have in any school. I'm so thankful I lived through it and did as good as I've done."

Retired Army Cpl. Gerald Ledwell said he believes Sept. 11 might help Americans value the sacrifices soldiers have endured throughout the years. "For many people who saw the towers coming down, it was the first time they saw anything like war here," he said. "But that's what war is all about. They don't care who they kill or how they do it. They'll get the job done."

There are nearly 19 million veterans in the United States according to U.S. News & World Report. Each day, 1,500 of them die. Fred Sigmon was one of them.

D-Day gives us the opportunity to remember him and those men and women who served and those who still fight for America.

"That war kept this country free; it set a lot of people free," Bowman said. "I had a mother and church that prayed for me and for some of those boys. They brought us back."