In our countryside summer home in Brittany, France, August 2024 marked 80 years of French liberation from German occupation thanks to the American Army. Freedom was defended and wartime innovations like plasma were born....
Reflections from France, WWII liberation and plasma innovation
Plasma. As the iron that burst from stars billions of years ago courses through each of our veins as hemoglobin, plasma is even more universal and ubiquitous.
The water that carries nutrients to the cells of our bodies, plasma can be shared among us regardless of blood type. The use of life saving plasma was a medical innovation born out of WWII and the genius of African American Dr. Charles Drew of Columbia University. Through his discovery how to remove red blood cells and store plasma, wounded soldiers blood volume and pressure could be maintained. Millions of lives have been saved thanks to this wartime innovation.
As the iron that burst from stars billions of years ago courses through each of our veins as hemoglobin, plasma is even more universal and ubiquitous.
I was struck by the story of plasma this August in France during the commemoration of the American liberation of this tiny town in Brittany where I live each summer with my husband, kids, and in-laws. Celebrating 80 years of liberation, the town square was full of locals, decorated with American and French flags, and studded with American army tanks and jeeps. There was an encampment recreating an American military outpost with relics from the Red Cross and lighter amusements like donuts, baseballs, and jazz wafting through the air via record player.
It got me choked up. It got me thinking of what any of us would do to defend our homes and our families.
It got me choked up. It got me thinking of what any of us would do to defend our homes and our families. It got me thinking about our friends in Ukraine and their determination to use whatever weapons are at their disposal (including cluster munitions and landmines supplied by the US) to fight for freedom. It made me marvel over the innovations, like drones, coming out of this war which may expedite the changes in how future wars are fought - for better and worse. It also made me anxious to think about our world on the brink, environmentally, geopolitically, and my children’s place in it.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Yet, as well, I felt proud - and fortunate to be reminded from the French perspective what America has been capable of achieving for humanity. It is the people who have become Americans, from all walks of life from countries across the world, who have made America successful at innovating and collaborating with other nations to advance human rights, science, technology, and commerce. (This is what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is all about and why I named ARTICLE22 in its honor.) These progresses come with both mistakes and enormous sacrifices such as the toll of human lives left on the rolling hills of Normandy.
The 80th anniversary of liberation of our tiny town in Brittany helped me parse through my contradictory feelings and realize one of the most important skills to teach my littles navigating life - the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. As F. Scott Fitzgerald said, that is the sign of a first-rate intelligence.