Normandy June 2009

I know its a year future but next year is the 65th anniversary. I know most people on this forum are from England but I figured even this early its worth asking....

How many of you admirable English blokes are counting on making a trip to the beaches in France next year....

I'm dead set on another trip to Normandy despite the cost....todays dollars a trip from the us to france is about 400 pounds...

Thats a lot of money in the United States. I am going to bring a good friend of mine who has never been overseas...

..and if we can work out the logistics if the trip before we go I am going to see if my good friend 'Sapper' may let us come over for a tete a tete before we climb a transport and go to France...


Pardon me... I'm excited about the trio and its stilla year away but Im most excited because I am going to get to introduce a WWII presence to someone who deonst get it now.

Perhaps some of you fine gentleman may let us buy a pint or two along the way so you can explain it better than!

I love this forum. A Bunch of blimey Brits that still have patients for a dumb yank!

Thanks guys....

-robert!

 

P.S. That guy above has had a few pints this evening but he's got a baby on the way and he's taking up a new job in August and he's one of few Americans who really believesMontgomery was a great General and who has utmost admiration for British 6th and 1st Airborne in WWII.

 

Me and Brian and his lovely wife Sheila a few years ago....

 

Drunk Americans! What waste!

 

Those Sappers are pretty impressive too though arent they? 246 Engineer Co. Monty's Ironsides.....

 

I'm with Stupid (imagine an arrow pointing up)

 

the " with stupid" comment was not aimed at you Owen....

I expected that one to be self deprecating...

I suppose I've had a few too many for a Friday night in June...

Still my trip to see Brian a few years back was worth the 2000 miles it took to get there.

 

Perhaps......but probably not too soon I suspect

 

Most Americans dont give 2 squats about what the British did during the war. i'm lucky enough to have 2 British D-Day veterans that I consider good friends...I'm the lucky one...

 

I tend to gravitate to people and not so much to stories...

My trip over to England in 2005 was preciosu because I met Brian and his wife another D-Day vet and his wife from the RASC. Thos 3 days were the best 3 days I have ever spent in Europe.

 

Both couple invited me into their homes for drinks, sandwiches and conversations. I'm just some fool from thousands of miles away but they still invited and I was priveledged to go. I wouldnt have missed it for the world.

 

Brian was a most gracious host.....He's such a huge personality I felt real small sitting in the room with him....

 

Will you be asking for some of these posts to be edited when you've sobered up?


Am I really that bad?

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence mate! It's great to meet the veterans especially when they surprise you. I'm on the internet writing notes back and forth and then I'm on the phone talking back and forth and then really before I know we are making plans for a flight overseas and and I'm sititng in sitting rooms with British veterans drinkig ale and siping tea and all the while wondering how a dumb american from ohio wound up in a living room in Birmingham having the most splendid conversation with a British D-Day vet

 

It amazes me sometimes how much these old fellows are willingto put up to put up with people like me who just ask ask and ask and sit wide eyed and dumbfounded.

 

I love their stories when they tell them