I stumble-ran a short distance when I saw our First Sergeant lying on his side in a patch of red sand. His chest was soaked in blood; his arm was extended, his index finger pointing toward the cliffs. Tough, experienced and fair, the kind of leader every army needs to succeed, he was showing us the way even in death. I remembered him back on the troopship telling us what to expect and how to handle it. I had told him I was glad to be going in with some veterans. He growled to me, “Kid, when the ramp goes down, you do one thing! One thing, you hear? You haul ass like it’s on fire and don’t stop for anything or anybody! You got that?” I’ll never forget him. I must’ve stopped there, because a lieutenant we picked up along the way yelled at me to “get your ass moving!”
Rounds whining around, wanging off hedgehogs, finding guys, drilling, punching, boring, tearing, ripping into them. Dead and wounded were packed together like cigars in a cigar box. I’m so scared I wet myself, stumbling forward, mewing with fear. “Hail Mary full of Grace”, “Hail Mary full of Grace”, “Hail Mary full of Grace”, “Hail Mary full of Grace!” A sergeant ran beside me, yelling for us to, “move out, mo. . .” he coughed as his face blossomed into a red spray. He fell forward onto the red sand. I fell over the body of someone, his intestines laid out next to him, blood all over. He was still alive, moaning, calling for a medic. The priest we met on the Javelin was kneeling beside him, giving him last rites. I yell to the priest, “Father, get out of there!” He ignores me. Maybe the cross on his helmet will be seen by the Germans and they won’t shoot him. A radioman was kneeling in red sand, a huge gaping wound in his forehead, blood all down his right side, hands covered in blood, fingering a rosary. Bodies all around, the beach was black with them; some trying to move forward, most still.
From Chapter 14, A Day In Normandy