The text and photographs for this AAR were provided courtesy of June C. June participated in the Normandy France GORUCK Challenge Class 1046. I’m very excited to post this AAR because I think it really shows what a GORUCK event can be about if you let it. Thank you so much to June for letting this live on the GRT Evolutions website.
As we started the Challenge, we were told about the historical significance of what we were about to relive, what we were about to pay tribute to, that this was not a normal Challenge, and we would relive history. 97 people participated traveling in from the USA, France, Germany, Italy and Poland. 4 cadre (Tyler, Jason, Dakotah and Rick) led the event.
I stared up at the cliffs, it seemed like a insurmountable task as to how the soldiers climbed them back in 1944 and took them out, if they had failed at that beach, the whole operation was done for, all 100,000 allied troops would have died or been captured.
As we practiced the Fire Team Drills, Bounding (I’m up he sees me, I’m down) as well as movement drills (wedge formations, moving as a column), I grabbed the sand between my fingers and thought back to how much blood had fell that day 70 years ago, It was a feeling beyond words that shook my whole body with the weight of the history, and sacrifice.
We were told of how they had to literally get shot on the beaches as they ran for the cliffs and the bunkers that were overlooking the beach, filled with Germans who wanted to destroy them. That they had to toss grenades into the bunkers to clear them of the German soldiers who were trying to kill them. The Germans were a formidable enemy, they were well entrenched and prepared for them. Staring up at the Bunkers from the water, you could tell it was no easy task they faced, many of their brothers died right next to them that day, and for many days to come.
Toward the end of his Inaugural Address, President Reagan spoke of monuments to heroism and, with a struggle to control his voice, drew attention to “the sloping hills of Arlington National Cemetery with its row upon row of simple white markers.”
“Under such a marker lies a young man, Martin Treptow, who left his job in a small-town barber shop in 1917 to go to France with the famed Rainbow Division,” Mr. Reagan said.
After Pvt. Treptow was killed, a diary was found in which he had inscribed the following pledge: “America must win this war. Therefore I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost, as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me alone.”
The will and might of the “Greatest Generation” was proven on that beach.
We spent a good amount of time in the water getting wet, and as we shivered, I shook off the feeling knowing “It could always be worse”, I could have been standing with an M-1 Garand in my hands ready to give my life and take that cliff, 70 years to the day.
We went on patrol up to the bunkers, to look as the Germans did at the beach, the angles were very well covered, and they were great fighting positions.
After we went on patrol along the cliffs past the bunkers, into the hedge rows so that we could take the scenic route to Pointe Du Hoc. On the way, I had a field of dreams moment from Gladiator as I ran my hands in the wheat fields, lightning flashed overhead illuminating the way. It was a treacherous walk with lots of holes and mud, and barbed wire but it could always be worse, we weren’t getting shot at by Germans, our fellow brothers and sisters weren’t being shot.
It was a 9 mile ruck to Pointe Du Hoc and we learned about the rangers who scaled a 100 ft cliff, to take and hold a vital point. It was the highest point between Utah Beach to the west and Omaha Beach to the east. The German army fortified the area with concrete casements and gun pits. In three days the initial group of 225 rangers would be whittled down to 90, they held the Pointe and destroyed the artillery emplacements nearby.
After our history lesson it was time to move back to Omaha beach, we found a WW2 Re-enactment camp that had a WW2 Jeep that Cadre Jason commandeered and we pushed him around the camp for time. It was both somehow both tough and really entertaining at the same time.
We ended after a nice stroll in the water that went up to our waist, and after the rest of our teams got back, GRT Drew Holmes played TAPS from his Bugle he had been carrying in a 25# case (one of our team weights), the entire area went silent and chills went down my spine.
This was by far my favorite Challenge to date, and one I will never forget.
Thanks to Cadre Jason (RLTW), Tyler, Dakotah, and Rick, you all put on an event of a lifetime.
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Ben says
Was it easy to find bricks for the event?
June says
We went to a local brick store on the way from Paris (we drove from Paris to Normandy) and bought them that way. To search for them might have been harder.
Wandering Ronin says
When I did my event in Normandy, we had one of the guys driving in pick us up bricks from a base. That helped us out a lot.