Memorial to a Coyote
The beach in Northern France was so quiet and so serene, a polar opposite of that day decades ago. This was Memorial Day for Nathan Calhoun and for the first time in decades Mr. Calhoun, the elderly coyote, grey in his muzzle, saw the beach which he in younger days stormed with fighting men from all over the country who had grown closer to him than brothers. And as he looked at the calmness of Omaha Beach and the adjoining graveyard filled with the granite crosses bleached white, Nathan Calhoun looked back into the past at the war decades ago, at the many young men whose lives were ended that very day.
"You holding up, Zonie?" (a nickname given Calhoun for being born and growing up in Phoenix.) It was Matt Davidson, the New Yorker raccoon with whom he had developed a fraternal bond at West Point seated next to him on the cruiser. Losing him or the other friends he had made, his "band of brothers" would be devastating and yet that is exactly what was going to happen. The odds were in this ungodly contraption called war that a friend whom you made would be living one moment, gone the next. There was a hellish anxiety in that amphibious vehicle. It was obvious that many of the soldiers would step onto Omaha Beach and into Eternity. The nervousness of death coupled by the choppy seas led so many of them to vomit that the entire boat smelled not just of puke, but of incontinence, and of death. The CO barked his orders for his men to leave and he could see the grey waters of the Channel, already rippled by thousands of bullets to destroy the men who were coming out.
"Is this what you wanted to see before you died?" Nathan's son, Manuel said snapping him back to the current age. Three generations of coyotes had raised funds for and embarked with him, joining this personal journey for him so that they could see per Nathan's words "unspeakable and demonic horror" of war as they walked upon the sand, once rife with hatred and bullets and death, now a lasting monument to the sacrificies of fearless individuals.
"This place is a nightmare for me but it is one I must see before death, to give my life closure. We must find the grave of Davidson, Gold, of Redondo and of the others," Calhoun said, the names of his former comrades now decades deceased hitting him like body blows dealt in quick succession. So many friends, so many losses and he thought back to Davidson...
The coyote stormed the beach, narrowly dodging the hailstorm of bullets, each one an open invitation from Death itself to that eternal sleep. He fired back and killed some of the Germans, questioning his sanity as he committed such barbaric acts in the name of a piece of dirt and a colored banner. His panicked mind would not offer him much time for thought and reflection as he dodged certain death time and again but as he saw his comrades fall, Calhoun knew that their time had come far too early. And after hours which seemed like months passed and the Germans fiinally retreated overwhelmed by the sheer number of Allies and been completely swept out of their hiding places, the coyote looked at the many corpses now littering the landscape of this once-pristine beach. And he saw that dead raccoon and felt his body, cold and dead. "No, it couldn't be him." But as he looked, he saw the name 'Matt Davidson' on his dogtag, he knew that his friend was gone. Forever gone.
And then he saw the grave of his friends and took a piece of paper. WIth his paw grasping a crown, he etched the name embossed on that gravesite 'Matt Davidson, January 8, 1921- June 6, 1944." and kneeled at the cross which stood in his honor with his family behind him.
"Children, there is sadness in death, just as there was when Emily died after living 85 years. But nothing can be more sad than losing someone before their time. Look around and you see many lost before their time." Indeed the entire field near the beach was filled with crosses for these tragedies.
"Let no one evr deceive you into thinking that wars can be won." the coyote said addressing his family. "All wars are losses, losses for fathers of these men, for their wives in raising a family, losses in productivity at the job. and losses for all God's creation. The only good thing that ever comes in war is that eventually it ends and we can count the losses and the survivors can get on with their peacetime lives. But as we learn in Scripture" the coyote said, turning his gaze to his eldest son "whoever lives by the sword, will die by the sword. And it's a lesson lost on each generation. Nothing could be more valuable to people than the people themselves, not land, not money, not some vaguely-defined glorious victory. Just people living in peace."
This lecture sapped the strength of the 89-year-old and he needed help getting back to his feet from his eldest sons. And he looked down at his own dogtag rusted and hardly-legible after years of wear as a constant reminder the stupiditiy of war. But he had survived tha day where others fell- the coyote had lived to see another day, lived to see Phoenix again, lived to be here at the age of 89 to recount those unpleasant memories of those who were not so lucky. And so he looked up at the golden sands of Omaha, the blue waves of the Channel reflected in the peaceful sky- the beach in Northern France was so quiet and so serene, a polar opposite of that day decades ago.
In honor of Memorial Day and the valuable sacrifices of he courageous soldiers who fought in World War II.