A Legacy Preserved

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. A moment preserved in time. A moment meant to last for generations. But words can have as big as an impact as pictures. Authors have been able to paint pictures with words just as much as artists are able to paint with brushes. Words have lasted longer than pictures. Since the beginning of time, the spoken and written word has been passed down for generations on end sharing stories and legacies of people and events. For many, stories would be passed down from parent to child. But what would happen when a parent dies without passing on their legacy to their child? What happens to all the soldiers in war resting in the ground under nameless crosses. Who passes on their story?

During World War 2, thousands of soldiers fought, and thousands of soldiers died. Many of the men who died had their identity's forgotten. They simply joined the rows of identical crosses lined up. One American journalist however could not let the sacrifice of so many soldiers be forgotten. His name was Ernie Pyle and he joined soldiers on many missions to in someway preserve the lives of these soldiers. One of his most famous essays is titled "On the Road to Berlin." It describes the beaches of Normandy right after the famous D-Day invasion. In the essay, Pyle tries give the sacrifice of the soldiers who fought some meaning. They were not just some tools that were used to achieve victory, they were real men who had normal lives. Pyle's essay share's with us the lives of these men and how their lives were cut too short. He tells the stories of every soldier.

There in a jumbled row for mile on mile were soldiers’ packs. There

were socks and shoe polish, sewing kits, diaries, Bibles, hand grenades.

There were the latest letters from home, with the address on each one neatly

razored out— one of the security precautions enforced before the boys

embarked.

There were toothbrushes, and razors, and snapshots of families back

home staring up at you from the sand. There were pocket books, metal

mirrors, extra trousers, and bloody abandoned shoes. There were broken

handled shovels, and portable radios smashed almost beyond recognition,

and mine detectors twisted and ruined (Pyle 247).

Many of us have albums full of pictures about us and our lives. On the Road to Berlin is the photo album of every soldier who fought on the beaches of Normandy. Ernie Pyle paints the pictures of D-Day's aftermath using his words. Everyone uses pictures so much these days that we forget how powerful words can be as well. Almost all of the legacies of people who have stood the test of time were preserved in the written or spoken word. Do you think anyone would know who Anne Frank was if she didn't write her Diary? What about the Bible? If the bible didn't exist, almost all religions wouldn't be the same today. Shakespeare is remembered because of the plays he wrote. This is how powerful the word can be. We today amidst all the technology and images we find on social media should never forget about the written word.

People who keep a diary or write physical letters are one step closer to preserving their legacy. You may not think much about a diary or a little paragraph written about ones day, but when you come back to something you wrote when you were younger, you find yourself reliving those moments again. The same will happen when someone picks up your diary after you have passed on, they will live the moments that you wrote down. This is exactly what happens when you read a book or listen to a story. You live the moments that the characters go through.

Some may argue that you can experience the same thing when watching a movie. And you can to a certain extent. But movies do not offer the same level of immersive-ness that books do. When you watch a movie, the story happens out side of you. You watch the events happen. And while movies and videos are still a great way to experience past or fictional moments, books and words let the story live in you. When you read a book, the story happens in you. Not in front of you, in you. Thus it brings the level of experience to a whole new level.

The word provides us with another way to preserve our legacies. Ernie Pyle preserved the legacies of so many soldiers through his works of written essays and stories. We should follow his example and also use the written word to preserve our own legacies and the legacies of the people around us.

Links

Nib and Paper

Field of Crosses

Normandy Beach

Diary

Reading Man

Works Cited

Pyle, Ernie. Brave Men. Grosset & Dunlap, 1944.