My trip to Nijmegen in the Netherlands was interesting, challenging and sometimes overwhelmingly melancholy.
Jeff Wilkinson with The State along with Heidi Meltretter and I made up the team. We traveled to document SC WW II hero Moffatt Burriss and his pilgrimage back to a place that in 1944 was hell but today is lovely, idyllic and charming.
The highlight was Moffatt at 90 parachuting out of a plane to the delight of his family and a crowd commemorating Operation Market-Garden.
We spent 3 days following Moffatt and his entourage as part of a project for ETV Endowment.
We happened upon a reenactment group of Dutch, portraying American soldiers who were gracious enough to role play and be videotaped. They also gave us a ride to the commemoration ceremonies. Their knowledge and respect for the history of the area and events was amazing.
One of my tasks was to edit a short video for The State and get it uploaded the first full day we were there. Our contact Anton had put us in touch with a guy he'd met at a party, Henri at Hemusic media productions who had the same edit set up as me and had agreed to help get it done.
After we taped all day, Henri picked me up at the hotel and we traveled to an area he called "Seven Hills" in the Groesbeek area outside of Nijmegen.
Around 2am the edit was done and uploaded. Henri was fantastic, gracious and tenacious in his assistance. He and his girlfriend Monique fixed dinner and entertained me with some of his work - he does original music scores along with other media production.
We spent the next couple of days following Moffatt and his entourage around the area as he recounted his experiences of battle and survival.
Moffatt's grandsons climbed the bridge where the Americans had imprisoned German soldiers in the hallows of the support arches.
My last task was to board a boat with press from all over to get Moffatt crossing the Waal river to commemorate the daring assault of many years ago. Read Jeff's article for more details.
Moffatt was on the last boat and had his back to camera the whole time...but I got great video of these other guys....
Upon our return a tour boat pulled up next to us and handed us a stack of delicious pancakes that we happily accepted.
As I walked the streets and traveled the area I was overwhelmed with a sense of what my father who had also done battle in Holland must have gone through . Although I have yet to find specific details of where - I couldn't help but feel it must have been close by. He was just a kid - just a year or so older than my teenage daughter. How frightening, hellish and intense it must have been for all of those young men and women that risked and sacrificed their lives for the freedom of the area. The stories are too gruesome and almost unbelievable to even go into for me. How in the world they managed to have the courage to commit to their tasks is unimaginable for us privileged Americans. But they did. I exclaimed my astonishment to one of our guides that these events were something I rarely thought of and he said "they did it so you wouldn't have to think about it." There were so many moments over there that I did think about it and it was like a kick in the gut, an awareness I'd never felt...about my father and the thousands of others on both sides that lived and died in circumstances inconceivable.
Note: All pics were taken with my iphone - most of my images are on videotape and will be edited for an ETV segment on SC WW II heros.
