Every Man A Hero: Lessons Learned from a WWII D-Day Survivor

Every Man A Hero

Every Man A Hero Over 10,000 men became causalities of war for the allied forces on D-Day. Of the 16 million Americans who fought in World War II, just under four hundred thousand remains. The majority of whom are in their 90s, and some in their 100s.

The 2030s will mark the end of surviving WWII service members. In the 400,000 remaining survivors, less than 900 were there on D-Day. Ray Lambert, a three-time Silver Star awardee, is among that 900.

Ray recalls that grey ominous day in this way:

"One hundred and sixty thousand men, some five thousand ships, and thirteen thousand airplanes took part in an assault that ultimately decided the war. It was one of the bloodiest days in one of the bloodiest conflicts mankind has ever fought. It ended in a tremendous victory, but one that was far from preordained."

Stated simply, he said, "Every man on that beach was a hero."

I am on week 4 of Tim Challies 2020 reading plan, and this week is "A book about History."

For this week I chose to read and comment on Ray Lambert's book, Every Man A Hero: A Memoir of D-Day, the First Wave on Omaha Beach, and a World at War.

Jim DeFelice is the co-author who helps Ray, now 99 years old, tell his story for the world to remember. Together, Ray and Jim recount the Second War from the vantage point of a tough kid from Alabama, who survived the Great Depression, and voluntarily joined the Army as a medic to fight the formidable Nazi and Axis powers.

Today we, especially my millennial generation, run the danger of forgetting the past. I love what Ray writes in his opening chapter, "The harder we work to remember, the better we get at it. The more we remember, the better we become at mastering the present."

Ray takes time to connect parallels between the world he observes today and that which he was raised in. He humbly and matter of fact asserts:

"I grew up in the South with the two B's—if you got out of line, you got the Bible and the belt, though not usually in that order. Maybe we weren't better behaved than children now, but I would say we learned to respect our elders and mind our manners darn quick. If the world wasn't a better place for it, at a minimum, it was more polite."

If you need a break from your screen, if you are looking to broaden your perspective on humanity, if you are looking for inspiration of gallantry and heroism, if you need to remember the past to inform your present, then Ray's book is for you!

I won't ruin Ray's story for you with a lengthy review. Instead, I want to draw out a principle for disciples of Jesus to embrace. A principle that Ray emulates on D-Day at Omaha Beach.

He is Great than I (HE>I)

How does someone prepare for War? How do you mentally, physically, and spiritually prepare yourself for taking life, losing your buddies, and possibly losing your own life?

Ray says it this way:

"Everything I had been through, from the Depression to my father's injury to my boyhood to my work experiences, to cutting trees to doing laundry, to joining the army, to Africa, to Sicily, to Tunisia, to Troina—not only had they brought me here, but they pushed me on, urging me to do more than I was capable of doing, able to withstand incredible pain and desperation. To be who I was and what I was, a medic, a man assigned to help other men."

Though the paperwork was lost from the archives of history, as many from that day were, Ray was pinned with his third Silver Star for his heroism on Omaha Beach.

Ray recalls the grey clouds, splashes of German artillery, and the pinging and snapping of German machine-gun fire against and near his Higgins boat frame as they dodged their way to the beach. 

As the ramp door swung down, machine-gun fire lit them up. Ray recalls seeing one boat where not a single soldier made it off alive.

He kept telling himself, "move or die."

Lambert was one of the first boats to hit the beach. His task was to provide immediate trauma care for wounded soldiers and establish a casualty collection area as quickly as possible.

The invasion was expected to sustain casualties, but no one foresaw just how many.

The Army Rangers, 1st Division, and National Guard soldiers were completely exposed, being target practice for the pre-arranged overlapping German machine gun nests. One of the only spots for cover was a rock outcropping. This later was named "Ray's Rock."

Ray Lambert at his Rock 75 years after the events on Omaha Beach D-Day

There is no counting the lives Ray Lambert saved that day. He says, he doesn't even remember. He just kept moving people to that rock, bandaging their wounds, and then went to get another.

At one point Ray was carrying a man with his leg hanging by only its skin, while he had sustained a gunshot wound to his arm and an artillery blast to his leg that left the bone exposed. He put a tourniquet on, shot himself with morphine, and went back to get more men.

While trying to help a wounded soldier caught in the shallows, a boat came roaring in, dropping their door right on top of Ray and the soldier he was trying to save. Ray felt something crack in his spine, but his adrenaline was surging. He clawed the sand, pushed futilely against the 26,000-pound craft, but nothing could free him.

He and this soldier were going to drown.

I will let you read Ray's story to find out how that ended. But I want to draw out a simple observation from Ray's perspective of that day.

He believes, everything he had experienced prepared him to face the "hell", as he calls it, that he did at Omaha. That those lessons taught him to be who he was, a medic. And so, be willing to lay his life down for his fellow man.

The Christian is the same. Everything God has allowed us to experience, learn, and go through, is meant to extenuate the unmatchable richness of Jesus Christ's grace. The power of the gospel, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, is meant to fuel us daily to be what we are and who we are.

Disciples of Christ.

Who teaches us that HE>I (for more info on this see https://hegreaterthani.com/pages/about-us)

Thank you to all members who fought and served during WWII. I pray we will never stop learning from your sacrifices and experiences.