STE MERE EGLISE, France — The soldier had goal fixation. He had three beers in hand, a full day of depart and a bunch of younger girls ready. However a crowd of Army uniforms additionally gathered for this French village’s D-Day celebrations stood in the way in which.
The soldier navigated one other step and realized he was pushing his beers proper into the uniform of Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Employees.
“Palomino, what are you doing?” Milley mentioned, studying the captain’s title tag.
Palomino’s eyes went vast.
“Whoaaa!” he mentioned, backing away from the massive man.
“Whoaaa!” Milley mentioned proper again, grinning and taking a step towards him.
Whereas the captain might have been shocked to seek out Milley mixing it up with troopers, it did not shock me. For these of us who’ve coated him, there’s the Milley who has been outlined by the deeply controversial moments of his chairmanship underneath former President Donald Trump, who branded him a traitor. After which there’s Milley with the troops, mischievous and at residence.
“Right here, I’m going to offer you a coin!” Milley mentioned, persevering with his method towards the 173rd Fight Airborne Brigade captain, dropping his chairman’s coin into his beer to the laughter of a herd of troops.
As soon as troopers get a coin as high-ranking as Milley’s, any time they’re at a bar and are challenged to indicate what coin they carry, nicely, they win and the opposite soldier buys the drinks. So it’s a beneficial coin to have.
I used to be a couple of steps behind, on task for The Related Press, however this was turning into no abnormal reporting journey. It was Milley’s final pilgrimage to Normandy as a soldier earlier than his time period ends Saturday. And alongside the way in which, he would make my late great-uncle, who’s buried at Normandy, a part of his journey.
It started on that sunny, beer-soaked day in Sainte-Mere-Eglise — on the sq. well-known for the American paratrooper whose parachute received caught on the church steeple as hundreds of younger males spilled out of planes and into the darkness on June 6, 1944.
“For me, it’s deeply significant. It’s religious, truly,” Milley advised me. His father was a Marine who fought at Iwo Jima, his mom served as a nurse. And Milley had served in each divisions whose battles right here on D-Day made Normandy sacred floor.
A whole lot of troopers from the 82nd and a hundred and first Airborne divisions packed the city’s bars and streets. Throughout this weeklong celebration, Sainte-Mere-Eglise embraces the younger women and men who now put on the patches of the items that liberated them.
All over the place on the sq. Milley went, curious onlookers adopted. Throughout Trump’s presidency, Milley had grow to be probably the most recognizable chairmen in latest historical past, and probably the most controversial. He drew fireplace from critics who argued he ought to by no means have grow to be so high-profile, and he enraged Trump for opposing among the president’s plans.
However among the many troops, he was their Milley.
“It was fairly unbelievable assembly him. He is been an enormous affect,” mentioned Sgt. Muniz, a 4th Infantry Division sniper group chief, after crossing Milley’s path and getting coined.
“There you go — it says Common Milley, Commanding Officer 1-506th Infantry, BCT a hundred and first, thirty ninth Chief of Employees of the Army and twentieth Chairman,” he mentioned, slapping the shoulder of one other a hundred and first Airborne Division soldier, Employees Sgt. Wolfe, who’d draped the Screaming Eagles flag throughout his again to safe the chairman’s autograph.
Like Capt. Palomino, the sergeants blended into the group earlier than I received their first names.
“What are you studying?” Milley mentioned as he moved among the many group, slipping a coin into the hand of one other younger sergeant. “You’ve received to learn Clausewitz and Solar-Tzu, ‘Artwork of Warfare’ and ‘On Warfare.’ Should you learn these you don’t should learn some other books. And the Bible, that’s it,” he mentioned, with a roar of laughter.
Just a few days earlier than, I might proven Milley {a photograph}. My grandfather and his brother have been standing in uniform in an English subject simply weeks earlier than Operation Overlord.
Terry “Salty” Harris would die days after leaping into Normandy, however he was already immortalized by HBO’s “Band of Brothers.” I’d introduced the {photograph} and my grandfather’s wings pondering there is perhaps a possibility to slide away and depart each on Terry’s white cross grave on the Normandy American Cemetery.
As soon as I advised Milley about them, he latched on.
“I commanded the 506th!” he mentioned, speaking concerning the a hundred and first Airborne Division’s 506th Infantry Regiment. Terry had been within the 506th’s Straightforward Firm; Milley had commanded the unit in Korea.
With Milley, a fastidiously deliberate itinerary is at all times simply a gap salvo; it by no means survives his first dialog. Add within the chairman’s love of historical past, the ocean swell of active-duty troopers and line of WWII veterans in wheelchairs who embody the final dwelling reminiscence of the preventing, it’s a little bit of a miracle Milley shouldn’t be nonetheless there deep among the many troops and veterans, coining each one among them.
However now he had Terry in thoughts, too.
“We’ve received to get to Carentan,” Milley mentioned, nudging his employees to discover a strategy to make it occur.
Carentan is a village about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from Sainte-Mere-Eglise. It is also the place Terry died.
On the nights that adopted June 6, 1944, paratroopers who had not been picked off by German weapons gave their all whereas regrouping on the bottom. The highway to Carentan is called “Purple Coronary heart Lane.”
We might go to Carentan, however solely after extra hours of assembly troopers; then visiting two orders of nuns, the place Milley advised tales of his personal Catholic upbringing; then a avenue vendor, the place Milley took over the grill and cooked sausages for his spouse, Hollyanne Milley, and his employees. Then we headed to Carentan.
“This proper right here, the turf we’re on, is the start of the liberation of France, and the start of the liberation of Western Europe,” Milley mentioned. “We must always always remember why they fought right here.”
Over the following few days, the schedule slipped away. Because the flyovers and speeches started on June 6 on the Normandy American Cemetery, honoring the previous was slipping behind information calls for of the current. The gravesite was for an additional journey, being there was sufficient.
It was not sufficient for Milley. Even after the speeches and the calls for for extra interviews earlier than the TV cameras, together with ours, the chairman received goal fixated, too.
“Did you get to see the grave?” he requested me as our AP video crew took his microphone off.
“No, there simply wasn’t time,” I mentioned. Already the interview we’d simply completed meant I wanted to get to work.
Inside a minute Milley had his advance guys briskly strolling the rows of white crosses. He knew that seeing the grave mattered. I had the gravesite coordinates saved on my cellphone and his advance group members have been fast scouts. I hurried with them, reporter’s pocket book nonetheless in hand.
Possibly it was the background sounds of the cemetery, Omaha Seaside simply off to the aspect, the wind. Possibly it was the stress that minutes have been shifting and a headline was not. However Terry’s story was one I knew deeply and held shut. A member of the family who’d been killed was proper there, and I gave in to the current and started to weep.
Hollyanne Milley put her arm round my shoulder, and she or he and the chairman and I bowed our heads, and prayed over Terry’s white cross.
After which Milley coined him.
Story Continues
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