D-Day, 2007

Ever since I was a boy I have been fascinated with war. I once toyed with the idea of going into the RAF when I was 16 but found out that I was colour blind and that meant I couldn't have been a Tornado pilot. From the age of 12 until I was 18 our family holiday used to consist pulling a trailer tent down England and into France for 3 -4 weeks. They were great times and I remember especially my first visit to some of the sites in Normandy that were left over from the Normandy invasion on D-Day, 6th June, 1944. I was in awe. I stood in the craters at Pont du Hoc, I marched up and down the perfectedly straight rows of gravestones at the military cemetaries in Bayeaux and Omaha beach. Since then, I have been back a further 3 times. This summer I took my own kids along for the first time. We visited everything we could along the beaches, every gun turret and museum and memorial. I tried to get the idea behind war and what had happened here to my kids as we walked round the sites. However, I suppose that like me it will take films like 'Saving Private Ryan' before they can fully understand what happened and how the brave men were able to march from the Calvados coast to Berlin in just over 330 days. Band of Brothers re-emphasised the sacrifice and Major Dick Winters has been a hero of mine for a while now and I was glad to be able to finally read his own war memoirs recently. His leadership and integrity through something like this asks questions. How would I have handled the same pressure? What would I have been doing in the war? Visiting historic living museumes like this are not just for the old and the remembering . . . the battles that were fought in the hedgerows of Normandy are what allow us freedom today. I value the stories. I value the memories, even though they are not mine. Hopefully in about 20 years, my kids will be doing what I did and dragging their kids all round the same sites . . . . . . .