The Hunt:

“The only mercy is the gray, churning water, because it gives you something to focus on besides the man next to you losing his breakfast into a paper bag. Twenty-four hours. For twenty-four hours, we sat in this steel box, waiting, all because some weatherman told the General the wind was wrong. Yesterday was supposed to be the day. Now, today is.

The whole world is groaning. It’s the constant drone of the big bombers that passed over hours ago, the deeper thrum of our own flat-bottomed craft, and the rhythmic, terrible CRUMP of the battlewagons behind us, lobbing shells the size of a small car at a shore we still can’t see. The sea is a forest of steel masts. I never knew there were this many ships in the world; destroyers, cruisers, transports, and a thousand little boats just like this one, all bucking in the chop.

My M1 is slick with salt spray. The man across from me, a corporal from the 29th, has the little blue-and-gray half-moon on his helmet—our division's mark. He just keeps checking the action on his rifle, sliding the bolt back a fraction of an inch and letting it snap shut with a sharp, metallic click. It’s a nervous habit, but none of us tell him to stop.

The coxswain shouts something, lost in the roar. The air tastes of diesel and fear. Ahead, through the mist, you can finally see it. Not a beach, really. A long, gray, unforgiving line. And sticking out of the water like broken teeth are the obstacles we memorized from the sand table models: slanted poles, great steel gates, hedgehogs of crossed iron beams. Rommel’s Asparagus, they called it.

The ramp is groaning. The naval guns have lifted their fire, and now there's a different sound, a high, angry buzzing, like a million hornets. That’s for us. That’s the welcome party. The corporal gives his rifle bolt one last, final check. The ramp is going down. We’re headed for the shingle, for the bluffs, for a sector they’ve given a simple, harmless name. It's just a color. Dog Green.

They told us that for the free world, this would be the longest day. They didn't say it would be the last one for so many.”