A Continuing Series
A trip to Omaha Beach in 2004
by Forrest Preece & Linda Ball
Forrest: In early 2004, I had decided that I was going to wind my business down and finally allow myself to take a couple of weeks of vacation, something that I had denied myself since I started it in 1977. The centerpiece of the excursion would be a jaunt from Paris to Normandy for the 60th anniversary of D-Day. Here is what my wife Linda wrote about that part of the trip, when she was reminiscing about it this year. One note: while we were near Vierville-sur-Mer, we were standing in line to get food. Our friend Pam had made a name tag for our companion Paul Gray, stating that he had landed at H-Hour plus three minutes. A French lady saw it and exclaimed, “Oh, you’re not paying for anything!” After buying his lunch, she introduced him to her young sons with awe.
Linda: Forrest and I attended some of the 60th anniversary events of D-Day in Normandy in 2004. We were part of an entourage with my friend's father, Paul Gray, who was in the 144th Engineer Combat Unit that landed three minutes after H-Hour. In the first picture shown here, Paul is telling us about the day in the approximate location where he landed on Omaha Beach. In the second picture, Paul is discussing matters with a gentleman named Bruno, who was a German soldier a few miles behind the beach on D-Day. Bruno was captured, spent some time in the U.S. in P.O.W. camps, married an Englishwoman in the late '40's and raised a family in England. Two of Bruno’s grandchildren were on this trip, and one of Paul’s was as well.
On D-Day, let's remember victories and sacrifices, but also rapprochement and peace. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 81 years now. These men are gone, along with most of the men and women who were adults during this conflict. It’s a shame they didn’t live to see a peaceful and prosperous world free of tyrants, genocide, and hate.
