‘It just tore my heart out:’ World War II veterans to revisit their battlefields
The Greatest Generation may not have many more opportunities to revisit their battlefields.
BY JEFF SCHOGOL | PUBLISHED MAY 26, 2023 2:45 PM EDT
In 2006, then-NFL linebacker Donnie Edwards was talking to a group of World War II veterans who wanted to visit Normandy, but they felt they were too old to make the trip.
Edwards volunteered on the spot to take the former paratroopers to France, and they quickly agreed. That brief conversation ultimately resulted in Edwards and some of his friends making their first trip with World War II veterans to the battlefields they had risked their lives on decades ago.
Their trip began in Holland, where U.S. and British paratroopers landed in September 1944 as part of Operation Market Garden, Edwards told Task & Purpose.
“I was blown away by what I saw,” Edwards said. “They created a whole weeklong event for these veterans coming back. When I say the whole country of the Netherlands came out, it was truly amazing. It was an impromptu deal that we made happen. There was a parade that they did with 100 different vehicles. The veterans were just adorned like The Beatles. I was taken back. I didn’t realize the love and appreciation to have the liberators back on the land that they liberated for the Dutch people.”
https://taskandpurpose.com/military-life/world-war-ii-veterans-visit-battlefields/
