Once again I posted this yesterday on that OTHER website…sigh…

Somehow saying Happy Veterans Day seems like a conundrum to me because is not happy and people remembering it are sad.

That said I am sharing sketches of War Memorials I did in France last fall in Normandy at the sites of the Allied D Day Invasions 71 years ago.

The Canadian Cemetery at Beny sur Mer. It was odd to me that people to young to know the men buried there were crying over dead relatives.

That said I found myself doing the same thing as I shared a link to my dads historic battle of Foxhill at the Choisin Reservoir in 1950. PBS recently aired a riveting documentary about the week long battle. I had heard bits of the story but to actually see the 32 below conditions they fought in, the rugged almost arctic landscapes, the mass burials of the Marine dead,the frozen Chinese who were shot because the Marines had no other choice in this desperate time was a totally different experience.

The beautiful Canadian Juno Beach Museum shaped like a maple leaf on the beaches of La Manche, the Sleeve as the French call the English Channel. A stunning building wrapped in glowing aluminum with state of the art exhibits.

The Ranville Eglise next to another Canadian Cemetery in Caen Normandy France. The day was getting dark and somber threatening rain that afternoon.

The Pegasus Bridge Museum. Using gliders brave British paratroopers jumped behind Nazi lines BEFORE the Allied invasion forces landed on the Normandy beaches. I am sure many of them are now buried at the nearby Ranville Cemetery. They are immortalized in the movie The Longest Day.
Thanks for stopping by.

Margaret xoxox