Sean Penn and Haiti...and Dunkirk

Sean Penn was a guest on Charlie Rose's show last week. He talked about his work in Haiti.

While he was talking, I recalled seeing him, in his boat, rescuing a person clinging to a tree branch trying to keep from being swept away in the floods after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans that caused so much death and destruction and revealed the colossal failure of government to protect people against known hazards.

I don't believe we have learned half of the horror stories

A day or so later, I was sitting on my deck, thinking about the interview when another image came to mind unbidden .

I was a child at the time of the Dunkirk evacuation . To an inexperienced child all things are new. Therefore nothing is unusual. Images of Dunkirk stayed with me but until last week they were just pictures.

My son Frank is in Scotland. He called and spoke of incredible beauty and uniqueness of the places he has been.... And the rain.

The rain might have completed the visual that triggered the memory.

It's cold and chilling. The sea is freezing.

I watched soldiers preparing for the European invasion . Over and over, they marched in from Dundonald Camp along the coast to board the special boats at the harbour shore.

They were taken along the coast to jump into the sea and wade ashore. They were carrying full gear. It rained for days... throughout the exercises.

I remembered stories about the march to Dunkirk . Soldiers fell to the ground, asleep in their tracks. Comrades not allowed to stop, kicked them as they passed, desperately trying to waken them .

Every little boat in the country took to the water to rescue those they could.

As the exhausted men waded into the water, hoping there was room for them , German aircraft strafed them with machine gun fire and dropped bombs among them.

The little boats went back time and time again.Until the last man.

As I thought last week, about the fear, the desperation and the courage, I found myself weeping.

I am crying now.