For WWII vets, France's stance is beyond belief
by Joe Fitzgerald
Monday, March 17, 2003
The retired general didn't have to worry about political correctness because he knew his audience was comprised of old soldiers who felt the same way he did, remembering the price Americans paid to secure the freedom France enjoys today.
``Going to war without France,'' he said, ``is like going deer hunting without your accordion.''
Contemptuous? You bet he was.
And that's how a lot of his comrades are feeling today, watching French President Jacques Chirac denigrate America's intention to remove Saddam Hussein by any means necessary.
Paul Cook was in the general's audience that day. Just before retiring as a district chief in the Boston Fire Department in 1988, Cook, whose specialty was logistics, was dispatched to Strasbourg to represent Boston at the dedication of a new fire facility there.
``Strasbourg, like Kyoto, is a sister city to Boston,'' Cook explained. ``When I got there one of our hosts asked, `Have you ever been to France before?' I said, `Yes, in 1944, at Normandy.' ''
He referred, of course, to the great Allied invasion that claimed more than 2,400 American casualties on Omaha Beach alone, leading to the liberation of Paris and the eventual conquest of the Germans who had occupied it.
``Every time I was introduced,'' Cook, now living in Westwood, recalls, ``the speaker mentioned Normandy and it would spark a tremendous ovation. Two of (late French president Francois) Mitterand's guards escorted us everywhere. We were considered distinguished visitors.''
Now, however, France has chosen to break ranks with the nation that once rescued it.
``To me, it's unbelievable they're not with us,'' Somerville's Richard Massiglia, a Purple Heart recipient, said. ``We were certainly with them when it counted.''
A Roxbury native, Massiglia was 22 when he landed at Normandy.
``All they have to do is look at the graves to remember how many of us died to save their butts.''
Gordon Crosby, 71, a kid by their standards, is a veteran of the Korean War and state adjutant of the Massachusetts VFW.
``I don't blame these World War II guys for feeling the way they do,'' he said. ``They lost a lot of buddies there. If it wasn't for them the French people would probably be speaking German today. If that sounds hateful, I'm sorry, but it isn't. I'll say one thing for the French: They do a wonderful job of maintaining American graves over there. But once that generation we liberated is gone, I don't think the younger ones will have the same feeling.''
It brings to mind a poignant scene from ``Save the Tiger'' in which Oscar-winner Jack Lemmon ruefully recalls taking a business trip to Milan:
``Then I flew to Rome and drove down to Anzio. There's a ridge there and the sand is all piled up like a dune. In 1944 that sand was muddy with blood. Last year it was covered with bikinis, sweating into the same sand that held all that blood.''
To which Jack Gilford, who plays his business partner, responds: ``Shouldn't surprise you. Battlefields have a way of turning into resorts.''
But some things should not be forgotten.
``We've had Belgium people come to our reunions,'' Walpole's Wally Songin, 78, who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, said. ``They've always appreciated what we did and I believe the French people feel the same way. But I can't understand their government. Same with the Russians; the Germans would have walked right through them, too, if it wasn't for us. How can they not back us now?''
Cook has fading photographs of himself and his buddies in the Army's 3110 Signal Battalion surrounded by jubilant residents on Liberation Day in Paris, August 1944.
``I remember how we held back, allowing Charles DeGaulle and the French armored divisions to march down the Champs-Elysees in triumph. We let them go first to get the glory, to make them look good. We weren't there for the glory. We still had a war to fight, all the way to Berlin.''
These are the sentiments Jacques Chirac stirs, and if some find them insensitive or offensive, too bad.
``I have mixed emotions,'' Cook admitted. ``I know war is an extension of politics, but as an American I also tell myself our government must know something we don't, and I trust it.'' |
