After driving around the coast for a good hour, we saw the first English sign in over a week. "The Normandy American Cemetery," etched in marble, made us smile. We were near Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer, in Normandy, France. We pulled into a space, as if we were at the mall, or any other place in the world.

There are no words, only the sound of peace and the ocean breaking in routine reverence. There were thousands of white crosses and stars of David, 9,386 dead brothers, fathers, daughters, and cousins. French, Italian, Americans, and Irish visit the fallen heroes, on a small stretch of land that is more American than French. It was truly the land of the free and resting-place of the brave.

Holding services, planting poppies, buffing each marble memorial until it's perfect, everything is done with respect. On the beach no one thinks about the blood, bodies, and burden that one stretch of land withheld more than half a century ago. One of the monuments at the cemetery captures it perfectly, "they gave their tomorrows for our todays." They fought a just war, for a noble cause.

The author Sulzberger recounts photographer Robert Capa's experience on D-Day. "The bullets tore holes in the water around me...a soldier began to shoot without much aiming at the smoke-hidden beach. The sound of his rifle gave him enough courage to move forward"(The American Heritage Picture History of World War II 503). This photographer was at war and on the job.

Early one Tuesday morning, June 6, 1944, a.k.a. D-Day, a.k.a. "The Longest Day," a.k.a. Operation Overlord, the world awoke to a clamor. The Axis powers were caught off guard. The "Big Three," Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin orchestrated the Allied attack. Lead by Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Allied forces and the world stormed into battle. The French countryside was the scenic backdrop and the backdoor that gave the Allied forces victory. In 1966 C.L. Sulzberger wrote, "One hundred seventy six thousand four hundred seventy five soldiers, 20, 111 vehicles, 1,500 tanks, and 12,000 planes"(482) went ashore on D-Day.

Thousands of lives were lost. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "Twenty nine thousand Americans, eleven thousand British, five thousand Canadians, twelve thousand two hundred French civilians and military personnel, and thirty thousand Germans were killed during the Normandy invasions"(1998). This does not even account for the number of the missing and wounded. But these men did not die in vain. They died protecting the free world.

Fifty-seven years and ninety-seven days later, on another Tuesday morning, a whole new form of warfare began. CNN reporter Porter Anderson writes Matthew Cornelous' (65th floor) memories of September 11, 2001. "We heard a loud crash...the building started shaking, kind of moving like a wave...Everybody started screaming...'let's get out of here.'...There was a lot of debris in the plaza level, a lot of carnage, basically...It's still sinking in, the full severity of it."

There were no mortars, no tanks, no machineguns; only trains, cars, and four large planes. Nineteen men, weapons in hand, so to speak, took aim at thousands of Americans. The events of September 11, 2001 have changed the definition of battleground. Going to work became an act of war. According to CNN, two thousand seven hundred sixty three people went to work for the last time. Two hundred sixty four people died in airplanes, full of horror. They were at war and they did not even know it.

By comparison the rules of past wars seemed clear and just. Women and children were off limits, as were civilians. But there are no perfect wars; therefore civilian casualties are to be expected.

But who is fighting this war? Stockbrokers? Bin Laden vs. George W? In America today there are no clear-cut opponents or targets. There are no strongholds or battlegrounds. Everywhere we turn there are threats of anthrax, bombings, and hijackings. In Afghanistan, US forces use 'smart bombs' to take out Afghan / Taliban weaponry and military hideouts. After seeing before and after pictures of the bombsights it is hard to see a distinct difference in landscape or 'skyline.' Members of the Taliban and Bin Laden's al Qaeda are living a life of secrecy.

In this war there are no Nazis. There are no opposing armies, just terrorist 'cells' with their own personal agendas. As stated by numerous terrorists, the American way of life has intruded upon their religious beliefs and lives. Our presence in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia is detestable to them. In a CNN interview with Bin Laden in 1997, he said the ongoing U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia is an "occupation of the land of the holy places." It is violating the Holy Land. By attacking the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, the terrorists targeted our government and financial stability. There is no holocaust. We are not defending the value of all human life; we are defending our right to live it how we choose. They attacked the American way of life.

When fighting for an ideal, people die. Innocent people die, but the rules of chaos regulate killing civilians. Should the rules of war be thrown out? Should everyone become a soldier? Are ideals worth dying for? Hitler had the Aryan race, the al Qaeda has its jihad, and America has its flag. Hitler has been quoted saying, "no power on earth can drive us out of this region [Normandy, France] against our will"(Sulzberger 483). Hitler had an army and they lost. Bin Laden has a dispersed group of loyal followers, who seem willing to lay down their lives for their cause. There is nothing more dangerous than an opponent who does not fear his own mortality. In this new type of war all bets are off. D-Day and September 11th have come and gone, now all that is left are the impact craters at my feet and the sense of hope in my heart.

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