…was D-Day (aka the Normandy Invasion).
Considering that I’m almost 60, it absolutely amazes me to read about D-Day veterans who are not only alive, but who are celebrating the anniversary in ways that I doubt many people could today.
Like this 89 year old guy who escaped from his care home to join celebrations in France:
An 89-year-old Second World War veteran told he could not attend today’s D-Day events in France went AWOL from his care home and was found 12 hours later in Normandy with comrades police have confirmed.
The unnamed veteran decided to disregard his carers’ orders, put on his medals under his raincoat and set off to join events on the beaches of Northern France for the 70th anniversary of the landings.
After the alarm was raised at the care home in Hove, Sussex, police searched the area and checked hospitals and bus and taxi companies.
But the extent of the veteran’s resolve became clear on Thursday evening when police were informed by another veteran that the missing man had joined a coach party and made his way to Ouistreham.
Ch Supt Nev Kemp, police commander for Brighton and Hove, said the man was “reported missing to us by a care home who said he can’t go to Normandy for D-day remembrance. We’ve found him there!”
Incredibly cool. God bless him!
And this 93-year-old veteran who parachuted into Normandy 70 years ago made the jump one more time. (Video here.)
Most people would be grateful even to be alive at 93, but parachuting?
Amazing.
Comments
2 responses to “10 years before I was born…”
I was born about 8 months before D-Day and grew up in a nation of veterans. My dad was a vet of the Pacific war.
The people of that time saw war and peace quite differently from the way most see it today.
My dad went ashore on June 7th, having spent the night in a LST shooting artillery into the French countryside.
That generation was/is very different from mine and likely a different species from the present generation. I’ve been rereading “From Here to Eternity,” and I see traces of my father and his friends in many of the characters. They were especially a more in your face, won’t back down group. They were also very crude by todays standards. They were unabashedly white, and were not shy about their opinions of blacks, Jews, homosexuals, etc.
Our future is Mexico/Brazil. Their America is dead and rotting.