Saturday, November 9th we traveled by van to Normandy. We were up ready to go by 6:30. Most of us nodded off in the van until the first coffee stop.
We visited Pointe du Hoc, and Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches along the Normandy coastline. We then visited the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. After lunch we stopped at the Caen Memorial Museum.
Visiting Normandy was hard because of all the emotions one feels. I felt anger, pride, amazement, gratitude, and sadness. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.
Before the D-Day invasion began, General Eisenhower summed up the mission of the Allies by saying, “You are about to embark upon the great crusade toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you…I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle.”
When touring this area with middle and high school students 20 years ago, our guide looked at the boys in our group and noted the soldiers who landed on the beaches were about their age. My tears started flowing then, for sure.
Baby boomers like us have huge conflicting emotions about D Day and war in general, I think. Our fathers fought in WW II, and most of us knew people who were part of the D Day invasion. Then we lived through the nightmare of Vietnam and had conflicting emotions about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bob and I visited on a cold day in February and were almost the only ones there. Quite moving but also depressing.