R.B. Miller Stepping Off

This is a very specific list of wars. I'd be bummed out if I'd fought in Kosovo, Syria, Somalia, or many other places where there have been conflicts, but who can complain about a road named for his three specific wars? Note that they didn't pick the usual (for Oregon) one-lane or even two-lane road, but a two-lane road with temporary third lane in the middle for turns.

Stepping Off frequently lauds men who showed up for battle, irrespective of the outcome, and frequently criticizes journalists for hyping battles beforehand but minimizing them after the fact. The men who landed on Omaha Beach 75 years ago were brave. So were the men who landed on Utah, Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches. I knew a WWII vet who spent his whole enlistment chasing around the Pacific trying to catch up with the ship he was assigned to. Would he have fought just as bravely as the men at Normandy? I think so. I'm not diminishing the accomplishments of the men who took Omaha Beach. I've visited the cemetery there, spending many hours wandering the beach, rows of crosses, and the chapel. Designers of memorials alternate between nihilism and grandiosity, but the Normandy cemetery is perfect. Visit it if you haven't. Visit it again if you have. The men who fought there had no access to these: To say anything of these: They fought and d...