I never knew my cousin, Patrick (Pat) Joseph Dwyer. He died four years before I was born.

My sister Rita doesn’t remember him at all. My older brother, Jim, vaguely recalls him as a shy and bashful boy. We only know Pat from his letters written during World War II.

Pat’s life was not an easy one. He left school after the sixth grade. The Dwyer family, only one generation removed from the fields of Ireland, was too poor to have mechanized equipment. They used horses and mules for thrashing in the summer and harvesting in the fall.

He was close to his dad, Andy, who always looked out for him. Pat was only 18 when his dad died. The grief at times overwhelmed him.

One morning, Pat woke up with a headache and his hands tingled. He felt funny. He shook and trembled when he slid out of the bed. His heart was racing. He felt unreal. He thought he was having a heart attack.

The strange feelings continued. He was scared. He didn’t know what to do. He tried to go back to sleep.

When he awoke two hours later, the sun was up and the rest of the family was in the field. He hopped out of bed and raced to the cornfield to help his family.

Anxiety and panic attacks had not made their way into the medical journals yet. Sadly, the episodes in those days were called “fits.” Modern medications and cognitive therapy were decades away.

Pat would go to the barn and cry, sometimes for no reason — at least so he thought. But there was a reason: A boy missed his dad.

Pat had never been off the farm when he thought a change of scenery might help. He took a job with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. His letters don’t say what he did, but in all likelihood he was a laborer. His health improved, and the periods of deep mourning lessened, although anxiety became his constant companion.

Working on the railroad, he was surrounded by other Irishmen from the homeland. He liked them, and they liked him. They all liked beer.

Life was going his way. Then one morning, he received a letter. The return address was from the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. “That is odd,” he thought. “Why would they write me a letter?”

The letter did not contain good news. “Dear Mr. Dwyer, we regret to inform you that you will be furloughed from your job on September 30, 1941. Thank you for your years of service, and good luck in your future endeavors.”

Pat didn’t know what to do. His dad wasn’t there to turn to for advice anymore, and his mother didn’t know much about such matters.

“Why don’t you join the Army?” one of the Irishmen suggested. “Things are heating up in Europe, and we may be drafted in a few months anyway.”

A month later, Oct. 20, 1941, less than two months before Pearl Harbor, Pat enlisted at Fort Thomas in Newport, Kentucky. The recruiting officers had disappeared, of course, and he was expecting a much better job than he got.

He was assigned to the infantry — Company A, Second, 5th Infantry Division. Marching headfirst into battle was not what this farm boy envisioned doing.

In December, the Japanese Navy bombed Pearl Harbor, and within hours the United States was at war with Japan and Germany.

His assignments included Greenland and Iceland, and he eventually ended up in Ireland. Little by little he was getting closer and closer to France and the landing beaches of Normandy.

On June 6, 1944, D-Day, 73 years from yesterday, the invasion of Europe began. The German resistance was fierce. A foothold was managed, but it took wave after wave of Allied troops to hold their ground.

Pat’s unit was in the second wave. He was headed to Omaha Beach. The waves were high, and his panic attack was horrific. The smoke, gunfire, and noise were too much. It didn’t matter anyway. His life was in God’s hands.

Pat made it to the beach. That was as far as he got. He was struck by enemy fire. His wounds were grave, and he was removed to a battlefield hospital where he succumbed to his wounds on July 26, 1944.

Pat Dwyer was like millions of other young soldiers. They didn’t go to war because they loved fighting. They were ordinary people, factory workers, grocery store clerks, auto mechanics, boys and girls just out of high school.

We often hear the phrase, “They gave their lives,” but they did not give their lives. Their lives were taken from them.

Pat never returned home to Clinton County. He is buried in the Normandy American Cemetery, Plot I-Row11-Grave 13, overlooking Omaha Beach and the English Channel.

Last week our friend, Donna Holmes, visited the cemetery and walked by my cousin’s grave.

“The white crosses were glistening in the sun,” she said.

And Pat, like many others, is at peace.

Pat Haley is a Clinton County Commissioner.