re: Just a reminder....as you're partying and enjoying your 3 day weekend

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Just wanted to share a few photos I took at the WWII Memorial and War Cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach.

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My grandmother told me when I was a kid about her cousin who was killed on D-Day (I'm not sure that it was Omaha breach but I believe it was). She told me that he took a direct hit from a mortar round that literally blew him to pieces. There was not enough of him left to bury and the only reason he was not listed as "MIA" was someone was looking right at him when he was killed. When they informed his mother she went into shock and died herself a few days later. He was her youngest son.

To give folks some perspective of how different of a time and how big of a war WWII was, in June 1944 in addition to her cousin who died on D-Day my grandmother also had 2 brothers in the Pacific with the Navy (1 in the SeaBees the other on a aircraft carrier), three brothers in Europe (2 Army - 1 infantry & 1 engineers) , 1 in the Army Air Corps stationed in England, she also had her fiancee who would later be my grandfather after the war serving as a tanker (yes, I became a tanker to follow in his footsteps) in the 4th Armored division in Europe. That's all five of her brothers as well as the man she'd later marry.

Nowadays most people may only know one person or have one loved one serving. But during WWII it was pretty common for virtually all the able bodied males of a family to be serving. They really were the greatest generation.