June 5th, 1944. England.
You’re twenty-something and barely slept. But you’re up now—facepaint on, gear checked, re-checked, and triple-checked by you and your buddy. You tighten your chinstrap and stretch out your chute straps one more time. You’ve trained for this moment for what feels like forever, but now that it’s here, time is moving strange. Slow and fast at once.
You get some hot chow—barely taste it. A cup of coffee, thick as motor oil. You sit on your pack and sip it slowly, soaking in the heavy British air thick with the smell of aircraft fuel, wool uniforms, and nervous sweat. Someone lights a cigarette. Someone else is writing a last-minute letter. Your sergeant cracks a joke you’ve heard before, and everyone laughs louder than they normally would.
You get a letter from home. Mom. Maybe a girl. You read it. You fold it. You put it close to your chest. It means something—but it’s not what’s weighing on you. What’s heavy in your chest is something more primal.
You wonder if you’ll freeze when the shooting starts. You wonder if you’ll even make it to the ground. That chute opens—or it doesn’t. You know too many stories. But then you look around at your brothers—those Screaming Eagles on their shoulders—and the fear doesn’t vanish, but it transforms. You’re not just doing this for the cause. You’re doing it because you can’t be the one who lets them down. You fear looking like a coward more than you fear death. And your momma didn’t raise no b*tch.
Then comes the call.
Final gear check. Static line ready. You line up with your squad, waddling under the weight. Your platoon leader comes down the row, picking each of you up one by one—like a coach sending fighters into the ring. “See you on the drop zone.” The handshake lasts a beat longer than usual.
You trudge across the tarmac under the dim lights, the wind picking up, that awful sound of engines spinning up behind the birds. You climb aboard, packed in tight like ammo in a magazine. Bench seats. Nervous knees bouncing. The red light overhead stares back like an eye that doesn’t blink. There’s a stillness now. You can’t turn back. Nobody’s saying much anymore.
Then the engines roar. The aircraft lurches forward.
Wheels leave the tarmac. You’re airborne.
This is it. The Rendezvous with Destiny. No turning back.
Only forward. Only down. Only into history.
Good Documentary “The Light of Dawn”
