On D-Day +1. ICYMI, my WP story from the 50th anniversary in 1994

D-Day 75 Years Later

In 1994, I had the honor and privilege of telling the story of the D-Day landing through the voices of veterans, then mostly in their seventies. Years later, in July 2009., Sandy and I visited Omaha Beach — now a public family vacation spot —  and the American cemetery, with its countless rows of crosses and Stars of David. There was absolute silence, befitting this mass graveyard of thousands of young men who died on the beach below us. We solemnly placed stones on the graves of the Jewish soldiers and also thought sadly of the rest marked by crosses.  They were all so young. Sandy remarked that many were born the same year as her father, 1921.

On this, the 75th anniversary of that fateful landing, I’m offering the text of the Washington Post story I wrote (and some photos I took in 2009).  Long before “Saving Private Ryan,” it brought home to me the horror, tragedy and bravery of that day. I hope it does for you, too.

“They Survived a Beach Called Omaha,” which ran in the Washington Post on May 30, 1994.

Here’s the text:

They are old men now, in their seventies and eighties, living in retirement in comfortable neighborhoods in the Washington area, but forever linked by a beach called Omaha.

 

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