Sam Elliott is one of Hollywood's most well-known, celebrated actors. With his uniquely deep voice and dignified aura, Elliott was the perfect person to tell Ray Lambert's story. Lambert was an Army medic who managed to survive D-Day. Before an audience, Elliott proceeded to relay Lambert's devastating accounts of survival, pain, and death.
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(You can watch the clip yourself down below, but in case it's too heavy, I'll transcribe bits and pieces of it here.)
"We were headed to Omaha Beach, and I was glad. After all the fighting in Africa and Sicily, I just wanted to get this war over with. It was daylight on the 6th," the story begins. Lambert meets up with a comrade. They wonder what their parents would think about what they're about to do. There's a promise that if one of them dies, the other takes care of that person's family.
"I climbed down the nets and got into the Higgins boat with my unit. On the way in, we could hear the battleships firing and see the big shells landing ahead of us. Guys were getting sick and vomiting from the choppy water in the diesel fume."
The next part is explicit, so if you're sensitive to graphic accounts of war, you may want to steer clear.
Sam Elliott Tells D-Day And World War Two Survivor Ray Lambert's Story
"As we got in closer, the Germans had a bird's-eye view of us coming in. We picked up machine-gun fire. The bullets clanged against the metal ramp of the boat like hail. Then the big 88s on the hill opened up. Every time a shell whistled overhead, all you could hear was the sound of a banshee screaming. Boats around us were burning. I saw men on fire. Even their shoes were on fire."
"Dead and wounded were floating in the water. We had orders not to stop and pick anyone up."
Despite the horrors he'd gone through, Lambert felt the strongest for those who had died during the conflict.
"A day hasn't gone by when I haven't prayed for the men we lost and their families. I still wake up at night sometimes, thinking about the guys. Every man that walked into those machine guns and that artillery fire on Omaha Beach that day -- every man was a hero.
What kind of person would I be if I didn't tell their stories?"
