Remembering D-Day: For a small village in France, D-Day is much more than a date on a calendar

This 70th anniversary of D-Day marks another historical milestone of the June 6, 1944 landing in France when 73,000 troops stormed the beaches of Normandy during WWII.

The men who plunged into the cold, icy sea with rifles high over their heads dragging heavy gear against the water's swift current are 90 years or older -- that is those who didn't drown or who weren't felled by a bullet.

For younger generations, D-Day is an invasion in a far-off war, a date in history not unlike Civil War battles at Gettysburg or Antietam that are flat words on textbook pages.

For those who made it onto the shore of Normandy and lived while battling through Europe, the reality show stayed with them while awake and in nightmares.

Not much was said as they suffered through years from an ailment that, at that time, didn't have a name and couldn't have been found in a dictionary, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

For this anniversary, some of those veterans, many on walkers, using canes or pushed in wheelchairs, will travel to that shore in France for the last time to relive that longest day of their life -- a day of inferno.

Fields of emerald grass and sandy, tranquil beaches of Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword will become alive, once again, with parades, banners, speeches, fly-overs and parachute jumps.

For the 20th anniversary, President Dwight Eisenhower visited Normandy for the celebration, and a television special was aired on the event. President Reagan spoke at the 40th celebration.

Much is publicized regarding memorial events near those famous beaches. However, in small, rural Normandy towns, local residents in quiet ceremonies sans banners, parades and dignitaries continue to remember the day their hopes for freedom returned.

I would like to share a touching, almost poetic, article by Keith Nightingale in the June 2014 issue of The American Legion where he writes about one of those small, rural towns and villages of the Cotentin Peninsula "where the invasion is more than annual date to circle on the calendar."

Nightingale says one of those villages is Hemevez that is dominated by a small church encircled by a graveyard hundreds of years old. Among the ancient, obelisk stones is a rectangular stone of polished black granite with gold letters.

"A small gravel walkway leads from the church to the front of this monument," wrote Nightingale. "It truly stands alone among the others. It is treated as such."

Written in French on top of the stone, are these words: "In Remembrance of the Fallen Soldiers 6 June, 1944."

Seven names of members of the 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division are listed.

Nightingale said on the night of June 6, 1944, 14 soldiers of Headquarters, 1st Battalion, 507th PIR were misdropped over the small village of Hemevez. Seven of those soldiers were captured and shot by a German unit. They were buried by local people. Later, the Allies repatriated the bodies.

"The villagers, however, did not forget the seven or what they signified," Nightingale wrote.

Every year during the anniversary period, the entire village gathers by the monument in the churchyard to honor those Americans.

"This is not a contrived event," Nightingale said. "Hemevez is as obscure as a distant rural French village can be. No one remarkable, French or American, appears there except on the rarest of occasions, and then it's often by chance."

In describing the ceremony on June 6 of each year, Nightingale says the mayor, a farmer by trade, takes his place next to the monument.

He wears his only suit and tie and shoes still muddy with the residue from his livelihood. Also standing next to the mayor and as humbly dressed as the mayor are representatives of the French Resistance, Army units, and Foreign Legion with their flags.

The ceremony begins with the playing, from a somewhat broken and scratchy CD, the U.S. national anthem and "La Marseillaise."

Nightingale says the villagers sing with gusto and even the donkeys lend their voices as they bray in the adjacent field.

Following the singing, the mayor quietly recounts the events of that night

so long ago. Then he reverently reads each of the seven names graven in gold.

After each name is read, the villagers firmly voice in unison, "Mort pur la France."

The ceremony ends with a prayer given by the priest and most of the residents slowly depart.

"Every year, the village repeats this ceremony," noted Nightingale. "Every year, they repeat the names and remember what they mean. In a part of Normandy unseen by the thousands who come each year and never happen upon Hemevez.

"Being seen is not important to the village. They know why they come together and why they always will."

The names graven on the granite stone:

Pfc. Elsworth M Heck

Pvt. Anthony J. Hitztzler

Pvt. Andrew W. Kling

Pvt. Delmar C. McElhaney

Pvt. Daniel B. Tillman

Pvt. Robert G. Watson

Pvt. Robert E. Werner