Memories of a Nobler Nation
What Europe shows us about the ideals America once held dear.
What’s going on? How can this be? When will it end?
These were the questions my wife and I, as Americans, were asked, explicitly or implicitly, on our recent trip through Europe. A bafflement we shared, unable to provide answers.
But as we made our way from the Netherlands into Belgium and France, another theme emerged.
When we said we were traveling to Normandy, what we encountered instead was gratitude—and a lingering affection.
A Frenchman born in 1946, as was I, told us how he grew up with the stories of D-Day and the Americans who came to liberate his country. That they came not for land or treasure, but for a belief that crossed oceans and connected continents. He spoke of a gratitude for America that he and others of his generation have carried throughout their lives—and of how difficult it has become to hold on to that sensibility in the face of so much that now undermines it.
We heard versions of this again and again. We carried those sentiments with us to Omaha Beach.
Walking it at low tide, in a strong cold wind, shivering as we tried to imagine men desperately traversing that long, exposed expanse from the waterline to the bluffs. To reach a shore that offered no respite. To pass the bodies of fallen comrades. To move forward with no safety until victory and no assurance of victory.
The scale of the undertaking is well documented—the thousands of ships, the coordination across nations, the rapid construction of artificial harbors. But what is striking is how perilous each and every step was. Every spot holds countless individual stories of bravery and courage, valor and ingenuity. Standing before a concrete bunker, with its heavy artillery and narrow slits for machine guns, was to wonder how such positions were taken, one by one. A quiet pastoral bridge, now serene, was once the site where hundreds died to contest it.
We visited the American cemetery, where stark rows of crosses and stars extend over more than nine thousand graves, yet are only a fraction of those who fought and died. It is profoundly moving. It reminded me of Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg—that they gave “the last full measure of devotion.”
Like many of our generation, we grew up with the stories of an America that went from the beaches of Normandy to the streets of Berlin, and on parallel paths across the Pacific—so many bloody, terrible miles—to defend freedom. It instilled in us a sense of a nation that had fulfilled a great purpose in the world, and which reflected something essential back onto itself. It made us proud.
The contrast between the America remembered at Normandy and the America of today is not subtle.
I have no doubt that the men and women who have since gone to Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were equally brave. But how differently those wars sit in our history. How often we have squandered the treasure we possess as a nation—our youth—sent to fight by leaders sitting safely at home in wars shaped by lies, misjudgment, and arrogance.
And now, Iran.
Standing in a place like Normandy is to confront the sad question: not whether Americans remain capable of courage and sacrifice, but whether the country can still pursue a cause worthy of them. The feelings expressed by our French friend and his compatriots become nearly impossible to sustain, eviscerated by a country that elected and enables a man whose conduct is destroying the very fabric of the nation, and the values of liberty and fairness that once—for all our flaws—commanded respect abroad and pride at home.
There is a nausea-inducing contrast between the quiet valor and dignity of the leaders and soldiers who put their lives on the line for the ideals that shaped D-Day and beyond, and the hollow bravado of Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump who talk as if they were continuing the great tradition of D-Day while defiling it with their arrogance and foolishness. And the utter failure of politicians, many of whom are veterans, to unite in a loud protest to this foolish, expensive, and deadly use of our military.
Driving through the countryside, we saw landscapes dotted with wind turbines rising above fields and farms. Their presence suggests societies making long-term choices, grounded in a recognition of shared stakes and future consequences. There is a willingness to confront reality rather than deny it.
From this distance, it’s even more striking how awfully Trump and his sycophants have treated our nation.
Even abroad, people speak of the midterms, expressing a wistful hope that some measure of stability might be restored. But there is also a recognition of how much damage has already been done, and how uncertain any repair may be.
At the cemetery above Omaha Beach, the graves are aligned with a precision that suggests order, intention, and care. Each marker represents a life that ended in the service of something its bearer believed was worth the cost. The scale of that loss is almost impossible to absorb.
What is easier to grasp, however, is the gulf between that clarity and the actions of a nation now so far removed from what the men and stories of D-Day represent.
For now, we reside in limbo.
What’s going on? How can this be? When will it end?
Robert M. Herzog is a novelist and essayist, and the author of A World Between and Views from the Side Mirror: Essaying America.
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