Remembering U.S. Soldiers on D-Day

On June 5, 1944, along with a couple dozen other Army cadets, we were traveling along the roads in southern England, having visited the tank barracks at Bovington to view the new Churchill tank.

Along the 20 miles or so of country roads, and as far as the eye could see, were GIs sitting, reclining, standing on both sides of the road, smoking, quietly pensive. Interspersed were their trucks waiting to take them to the ports for embarkation. It was a fine sunny day, and only now do I fully realize the debt that we owed those soldiers of the 1st Division.

Noel Pugh

Simi Valley

Re June 6, the D-day anniversary: During my senior year of college in the mid-1970s I was enrolled in the University of Caen in Normandy. Seeing that my two classmates and I were Americans, an older Frenchman approached us in a city square, earnestly shaking our hands and thanking us for liberating his country. We were three women in their early 20s -- and he felt compelled to thank us 30 years after D-day.

I wonder how many Americans have been warmly thanked for their country’s wartime efforts since then.

Mary MacGregor

La Quinta