A prep course for the month-long World Cup soccer tournament, a worldwide pheno

at landed on Omaha Beach that June 6 in 1944 . He holds the Silver Star for valo

r and three Purple Hearts for wounds he suffered . He was an infantryman , only 

17 . But so were the German soldiers on the bluffs above , strafing the Normandy

 beach from concrete bunkers that are still there . Durning survived the invasio

n he had to kill seven German gunners to do it and suffered serious machine-gun 

wounds to his right leg and shrapnel wounds over his body . Later he was stabbed

 eight times by a bayonet-wielding German teenager . He killed that soldier with

 a rock . A few months after that , he was taken prisoner at the Battle of the B

ulge , survived a massacre of other prisoners , then had to return to help ident

ify the bodies . A bullet in the chest finally ended his wartime duty . Durning 

endured four years of hospitalizations for his physical and psychological wounds

 . `` I 'd like to have a decade of my life back , '' he said . `` I dropped int

o a void for almost a decade . It 's your mind that 's hard to heal . There are 

many horrifying secrets in the depths of our souls that we don't want anyone to 

know about . '' Later Durning found that his brother in the Navy also had been p

art of the landing . The invasion of Omaha Beach was assigned to the United Stat

es ' 1st Infantry Division , to which Durning belonged , and the untested 29th D

ivision from Maryland and Virginia . More than 70,000 men went ashore on D-Day ,

 15,000 of them to their deaths . In recent weeks , Durning has been unpacking h

is D-Day recollections . During a spring visit to Washington , he discussed his 

experiences guardedly . Those experiences , along with his familiar television p

resence , made him an ideal choice to take part in a Memorial Day event and two 

productions pegged to the 50th anniversary of the Normandy invasion . Sunday eve

ning , Durning will appear at the National Memorial Day Concert to read a letter

 written by a 19-year-old American soldier describing the horror of that day . M

onday night , on The Discovery Channel 's `` Normandy : The Great Crusade , '' D

urning does the narration and reads a poem written by a 22-year-old paratrooper 

. Durning has also taped an account of the invasion by Ernest Hemingway for incl

usion in a `` CBS Reports '' special on D-Day airing Thursday night and hosted b

y Dan Rather and retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf . Durning 's colleague from 

CBS 's `` Evening Shade , '' Ossie Davis , will host the 90-minute Memorial Day 

concert on PBS , the fifth produced for that holiday by Jerry Colbert of Pathmak

ers Inc. , and Washington public station WETA . This one focuses not only on the

 soldiers of D-Day , but also on the American nurses who served in Vietnam . In 

addition to Durning , concert headliners include Grammy-winning country singer C

lint Black , who has written a song , `` American Soldier , '' for the occasion 

; musician Doc Severinsen ; actresses Mary McDonnell and Jill Clayburgh , who wi

ll read letters written by nurses ; singers Harolyn Blackwell and Maureen McGove

rn ; and the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Erich Kunzel , with a mili

tary chorus doing selections that will include Beethoven 's `` Ode to Joy . '' B

rass on board are to include Gen. John Shalikashvili , chairman of the Joint Chi

efs of Staff ; his predecessor , retired Gen. Colin Powell ; and the chief of ea

ch armed service . Durning choked up a little while taping his narration for the

 Discovery documentary . His recitation before thousands of people at the Memori

al Day concert could be an emotional challenge . He 'll be looking into televisi

on cameras , but he asked Colbert not to require him to face the war footage to 

be shown behind him . Concert host Ossie Davis will understand . An Army medic s

tationed in Liberia , he was manning the base radio station in early June 1944 w

hen he ran into a military-news blackout . He learned about the D-Day landing fr

om the BBC and announced it to the local troops . It was Davis who was instrumen

tal in securing Durning 's appearance at the concert . Reminded over a lunch in 

April with his wife , actress Ruby Dee , and Colbert that Durning was part of th

e first wave onto Omaha Beach , Davis suddenly realized that his friend would be

 ideal to read the letter and leaped up to call the sitcom 's production office 

. Two weeks later , Colbert was in Los Angeles talking with Durning , who had re

ad the script for the concert and agreed to appear . Plans call for him to leave

 the stage briefly to shake hands with other D-Day veterans in the audience . Li

ke Davis and Colbert , Susan and Christopher Koch , producers of the Discovery d

ocumentary , and executive producer Tim F . Cowling thought the same thing : Dur

ning would be perfect . But they nearly missed him . They had contacted his agen

t but heard nothing . `` We thought , ` He just doesn't want to have anything to

 do with it , ' ' ' said Susan Koch . `` We were into casting the ( voices ) , a

nd his agent called and said , ` Charlie wants to do anything . He 'll read one 

line . ' We felt it was meant to be . '' It seems that Durning 's stepdaughter ,

 as aspiring actress , had seen a copy of the script that had somehow never reac

hed Durning and insisted he read it . After 50 years of suppressed memories , he

 decided it was what he wanted to do . `` We didn't get an actor , we got a Norm

andy veteran who happens to be an actor , and that was precisely what the film c

alled for , '' said Chris Koch . For the actor , doing the narration stirred emo

tions . A careful listener may catch a tremor in Durning 's voice at times durin

g the program . Durning and Chris Koch talked for several hours beforehand about

 Durning 's experiences . `` He said , ` You know , everybody who was there is i

n some state of denial . There are things I 'll take to my grave. ' ' ' Durning 

was with `` The Big Red One , '' the 1st Division , which went into Omaha Beach 

with the 29th Division from Maryland and Virginia . Units that ultimately formed

 the 29th fought in the American Revolution and both sides of the Civil War ( he

nce its nickname , `` The Blue and the Gray '' ) , but unlike most infantry divi

sions , it was and is part of the National Guard . `` We picked the 29th because

 they had never been in combat before , '' said Chris Koch . `` They were traine

d and selected to go in first . '' Durning had the bad luck to go in with them b

ecause , said Koch , `` he was a real troublemaker in basic training , he said .

 His CO said , ` Durning , you 're going in on the first wave. ' ' ' Among the v

oices in `` Normandy : The Great Crusade '' are those of actor Robert Sean Leona

rd as a Virginia corporal , Robert Sales ; Leslie Caron as Marie-Louise Osmont ,

 a widow whose chateau became a German barracks , and who kept a diary ; Mariel 

Hemingway as American photojournalist Martha Gellhorn ( an ex-wife of Ernest Hem

ingway , Mariel 's grandfather ) , who landed at Omaha Beach to cover the story 

and ended up caring for wounded soldiers ; and Joanna Pacula as Ursula von Karko

ff , an anti-Nazi German whose brothers were required to serve in Hitler 's army

 .

 Actor Charles Durning grew up in Highland Falls , N.Y. , near the U.S. . Milita

ry Academy at West Point . His father , an Irish immigrant who had joined the Ar

my to gain U.S. citizenship , lost a leg during World War I and died when Charle

s was 12 . The elder Durning 's widow supported her five children by working as 

a laundress at West Point . `` I never went to college ; barely got out of high 

school , '' Durning said . `` I finished high school when I came out of the Army

 . '' All along , what Durning really wanted to do was act . `` I was enamored o

f acting from the first time I saw ` King Kong , ' ' ' he said . `` When I saw C

agney , I just went crazy . '' At 16 , he was working as an usher at a Buffalo b

urlesque house that featured bawdy comics . `` They chose to believe I was 21 , 

'' he said of the management . After the war Durning used dancing as physical th

erapy to strengthen his badly injured leg , and speech therapy to smooth a stutt

er that had developed . He began training at the American Academy of Dramatic Ar

ts but was told he lacked talent . So he worked as a dancer and played small rol

es with Joseph Papp 's New York Shakespeare Company . A role in Papp 's `` That 

Championship Season '' on Broadway in 1973 led to one in a film , `` The Sting .

 '' Durning went on to do more than 70 movies . Nominated for two Oscars and eig

ht Emmys , and the recipient of Golden Globe and Drama Desk awards , he won a To

ny as Big Daddy in a 1990 Broadway revival of `` Cat on a Hot Tin Roof . '' Some

times Durning thinks about the loss to the country wrought by war . `` Only the 

flower of our youth , only the best the most healthy , the brightest are allowed

 to go , '' he said . `` Think of all the poets , the playwrights , the philosop

hers , the scientists , the statesman that were lost . ''

 WASHINGTON The Office of Management and Budget has announced a new pilot projec

t designed to ease some of Washington 's chronic procurement problems , such as 

cost overruns and lack of competition on large contracts . The government spends

 about $ 105 billion each year on `` contracting out , '' buying services that r

ange from grass-cutting and painting to highly complex scientific research and a

nalysis . The announcement this week by OMB Director Leon E. Panetta said the pi

lot project would encourage federal agencies government-wide to refashion some o

f their existing service contracts to reflect performance-based standards . They

 would include price , level of competition , number of contract audits and leng

th of the procurement cycle . `` This pilot project will help to streamline the 

procurement process and create a better work environment between the government 

and service contractors , '' Panetta said . For the experiment , agencies would 

convert contracts that offer ways to measure before-and-after results , and move

 from cost-reimbursement contracts to fixed-priced contracts . Agencies also wou

ld break up large `` umbrella , '' or multipurpose contracts that typically incl

ude a variety of routine services , such as guards and secretaries . `` I think 

a lot of people throughout government would agree with the observation that very

 frequently , in government and in service contracting , we don't do a good enou

gh job of defining what we want out of the contractors , what performance we wan

t , '' said Steven Kelman , the administrator of OMB 's Office of Federal Procur

ement Policy . Earlier this year , a survey ordered by Panetta found that the ``

 statements of work '' which describe the tasks or services to be purchased are 

often so imprecise that vendors are unable to determine agency requirements . Po

or statements of work can reduce the number of bidders , limiting competition , 

and make it difficult to assess a contractor 's performance . Kelman , noting th

at `` it 's hard to write a good statement of what you want , '' said some procu

rement officials developed statements of work , then used them repeatedly withou

t taking into account technological changes or lessons learned from management e

xperiences . The pilot project , he said , will `` tighten up the system in the 

sense of making it more clear , up front , what the performance criteria is and 

what we want from contractors . '' By using performance-based standards , Kelman

 said , the government should be able to move to fixed-price contracts , perform

 fewer audits and save around 20 percent on contract costs . An `` unusually dra

matic '' example savings of 43 percent was achieved at the Treasury Department w

hen it took a cost-based contract for training and coverted it to fixed price , 

Kelman said .

 WASHINGTON The health-care debate is not nearly as complicated as it looks . Oh

 yes , the details can get immensely complex and getting the details wrong could

 cost dearly . But what 's causing all the turmoil are a few key choices . Once 

those choices are made , the details begin to fall into place . The biggest choi

ce is whether or not the United States wants a system assuring every American he

alth insurance . This issue passes under the name `` universal coverage . '' Uni

versal coverage is immensely popular not only among those who are uninsured but 

also among those who currently have insurance but fear they will lose it or see 

their coverage eroded as employers face ever-higher costs . So popular is univer

sal coverage that few politicians will say they 're against it . But guaranteein

g everyone health coverage will cost money . There are only so many ways to rais

e the money . Congress could simply raise taxes . Or it could require individual

s to pick up the tab . Or it can require employers to pay part or most of the co

sts , as so many already do now . President Clinton 's plan puts most but not al

l of the burden on employers . All employers , with the exception of some of the

 smallest , would have to pay 80 percent of the health insurance costs for their

 employees , individuals 20 percent . That roughly matches the current split at 

companies that insure their employees . You wouldn't know it from the cowering i

n Congress over the dread `` employer mandate , '' as it 's known , but requirin

g companies to insure their employees is immensely popular . That ought not be s

urprising . Most people are employees , not employers . And most people think th

at if they hold down a job or , as is the case with so many families , two jobs 

health coverage ought to be part of the deal . But it is a sign of how skewed th

e debate is in Washington toward various business lobbies that the employer mand

ate has become the main sticking point in the discussion . Many Republicans and 

some conservative Democrats say they 'll kill any health bill that includes one 

. Yet most of these politicians will then turn around and also say no to new tax

es , no to individual mandates , no to anything that would actually guarantee un

iversal coverage . A courageous exception is Sen. John Chafee , R-R.I. , who fav

ors requiring individuals to buy health insurance . As Chafee noted on `` Meet t

he Press '' on Sunday , `` to have universal coverage and to have the reforms th

at we need .. . we 've got to have some kind of mandate . '' For his candor , Ch

afee has gotten nothing but grief from the Republican right , which wants to use

 the mandate issue to stop universal coverage . What scares the Republicans abou

t Chafee 's position is that if they concede the reality that only mandates or t

axes lead to universality , the Democrats who favor employer mandates suddenly h

ave the political high ground . Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole is very shrewd

 about this . `` I can already see the 30-second television spots , '' Dole told

 The Washington Post 's Dana Priest. ` ` ` Well , the Republicans didn't want yo

ur boss to pay for it , they want you to pay for it. ' ' ' Clinton ought to hire

 Dole as a media consultant . Some former opponents of the mandate among Democra

ts have begun to understand what Dole already knows . The conversion of Sen. Joh

n Breaux , D-La. , from firm opposition to open-mindedness about an employer man

date may be seen later as the turning point in the debate . Opponents of large-s

cale reform have taken to arguing that there is no need for a universal program 

now and that slower , piecemeal action makes more sense on a problem this compli

cated . This view has intuitive appeal , but may be dead wrong on health care . 

As Hilary Stout and David Rogers pointed out in the Wall Street Journal last wee

k , the cost per person of providing coverage generally drops when more people a

re covered in larger insurance pools . Piecemeal reform could be more expensive 

, not less . And real cost containment is only possible once everyone is in the 

system . Otherwise , the providers of health care will keep shifting costs from 

the uninsured or the poorly insured to the well insured . The point with health 

reform is that you either really do it or you don't , and the key to whether it 

gets done is Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan , the chairman of the Senate Finance C

ommittee . Moynihan 's discomfort with the Clinton plan is often ascribed to pri

ckly personal relations with the White House , with Senate Majority Leader Georg

e Mitchell and the like . But instead of psychoanalyzing Moynihan , supporters o

f health reform would do well to pay attention to what he 's written about socia

l policy over the years for example , in his 1988 volume , `` Came the Revolutio

n . '' Two themes are central to Moynihan 's view . One is the hubris of social 

reformers . Speaking of government 's exertions in the 1960s , Moynihan says tha

t `` we should not exaggerate what we knew or what would come of what we underto

ok . '' What scared Moynihan initially about Clinton 's health undertaking was h

is plan 's complexity and the impression some Clintonites gave that they thought

 they had unlocked all the mysteries of health policy . But Moynihan also has an

 immense respect for what government can do . `` Government , '' he says , `` ca

n embrace great causes and do great things . '' Clinton 's central task is to co

nvince Moynihan and with him the country that universal health coverage as conce

ived by the administration is not an act of hubris but a practical next step in 

a great cause that began with Social Security and the New Deal and that has work

ed out pretty well .

 PRAGUE , Czech Republic While former Communists and Socialists in much of Easte

rn Europe are riding a popular backlash against economic reforms to return to po

wer , the Czech Republic appears to be a notable exception . This country of 10.

5 million people , Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus said recently , is beginning to l

ook like `` a small non-leftist island in the center of Europe .. . . All opinio

n polls show that nothing like that could ever happen in our country . '' Jiri R

yvola , spokesman for the country 's newly militant labor confederation , has ma

ny criticisms of Klaus but agrees with him on one fundamental point : Former Com

munists and Socialists have little chance here of returning to power , as they h

ave in several other formerly Communist-governed states . `` It just seems unlik

ely to me that a similar development could occur here , '' Ryvola said . Less th

an five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall sent the Communist regimes of Ea

stern Europe tumbling like dominoes , both Poland and Lithuania have put former 

Communist parties back into office , and Hungary is about to follow suit , with 

the Socialist Party poised for a commanding victory in runoff elections there Ma

y 29 . Yet , here in the Czech Republic there is no sign that former Communists 

or Socialists are gathering any momentum at all , as both government and labor c

ontinue to support the drive to establish a free-market economy in the shortest 

time possible and seem to share a hatred for Communists , past and present . The

 sharing of basic views toward the reform process between the Czech republic 's 

only labor confederation and its political leadership has apparently not been sh

aken by a demonstration by 30,000 disgruntled workers on March 22 the biggest pr

otest seen in Prague 's Old Town Square since the overthrow of the Communist reg

ime here in November 1989 . The Left Bloc Communists , Socialists and their alli

es holds 33 seats in the 200-seat parliament , second only to the 76 held by Kla

us 's Civic Democratic Party . But polls show the bloc currently attracting less

 than 10 percent of voters . Why the Czech Republic is bucking the leftward tren

d in Eastern Europe has become the object of considerable discussion among Weste

rn diplomats , academics , bankers and financiers . These analysts are pondering

 whether the Czech Republic could serve as a model of successful transformation 

from communism to capitalism for other Eastern European nations or whether condi

tions here are so specific as to make this unlikely . Right now , the prevailing

 wisdom seems to be that the Czechs , formerly part of Czechoslovakia before it 

split into separate Czech and Slovak republics in January 1993 , are a special c

ase , with a prime minister who has devised a unique approach . Klaus , a promin

ent economist , prides himself on being a disciple of former British prime minis

ter Margaret Thatcher , a labor-bashing free-marketeer who despised the social w

elfare state . But analysts here say Klaus has in fact followed a highly statist

 approach toward reform that has carefully incorporated the labor unions as part

ners , relied heavily on social welfare measures to keep the social peace and sp

ent billions of dollars in government subsidies in flagrant violation of free-ma

rket principles . `` It 's clearly hypocritical for Klaus to call himself a That

cherite . He 's the biggest Social Democrat in Europe , '' said Mitchell Orenste

in , a Yale University graduate researching the Czech transition at the Institut

e for East-West Studies here . One of the most striking features of the Czech po

litical scene today is the divorce of the unions and leftist parties , while uni

ons in Hungary and Poland have jumped into politics and parliament with enthusia

sm . Analysts say the answer lies partly in how the fall of the Communist regime

 came about here more as an aftershock of the earthquake that swept the Communis

ts from power elsewhere . The transition was so peaceful that it came to be know

n as the Velvet Revolution but also so brief a matter of a couple of weeks that 

little real reform took place within the Communist Party . By contrast , the ref

orm process in Hungary and Poland was underway for years and affected their Comm

unist parties as well before non-Communists finally took power in the 1989-90 ge

neral upheaval . They quickly shed their old names and ideologies as part of a g