June 6, 1944

One of my life’s goals was to visit the Normandy D-Day beaches. A couple of years ago I was able to fulfill that goal. It was one of the most moving experiences of my life. What is most amazing is that so much is the way it was then, gun emplacements, bomb craters, barges in the sea, they still provide vivid reminders. I was there when the weather was nearly the same as the day of the landing, cold and wet with a rough sea. Unknown to us until we visited the U.S. cemetery was a man in our group who was there on June 6, 1944. It was impossible not to weep as we looked out over the white crosses and stars while Taps was played. We were all given a flower to place on the grave of a soldier from our home state. It was hard to find a grave marker for someone who had reached age twenty. History is an amazing thing and yet we often dismiss it as irrelevant when in fact it is our best teacher if we would only listen.

Never forget