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My Own Private Normandy
Remembering, on the 76th anniversary of D-Day, the power of American idealism in action, and the importance of preserving that legacy
THEY DIDN’T teach us all that much about recent American history when I was a kid in public high school, in Indiana and Oklahoma. In Indiana, I remember devoting a passionate month or so to ancient history — the Rosetta Stone and Heinrich Schliemann’s Troy — with a wonderful classics teacher who wore fire-engine red jackets and looked like Dr. Doolittle, all plump and benign. He would waddle through the classroom, and chide us in Latin, “Discipuli, discipuli, audite! — Students, students, listen!” And we did listen, because at 12 or 13, the mind craves information — if only it is made to seem interesting.
But my teacher in Oklahoma, where my family had moved my sophomore year, did not have Mr. Oesch’s knack, or command such amused respect. American history at my school in Oklahoma was taught by the football coach, who in my memory remains “Couch Bowgle,” as he introduced himself in the local accent on the first day of classes. He was an intelligent man, but the course he taught required him only to sit at a large desk, keep us from shooting paper footballs at each other and give multiple choice tests once a week. As a result, for me, American history took this shape: 1) B; 2) A; 3) None of the above.
