IF YOU WERE 20 YEARS OLD IN JUNE 1944, you are 90 years old today, and you probably don't need to be reminded of that. But that's how old many of Canada's younger D-Day veterans are as commemorations begin for those who participated in the largest seaborne invasion of all time—D-Day. Seventy years have passed since the Allied assault on Hitler's Fortress Europe and many of the men and women who were part of that incredible era are now gone. Many have left us with excellent books and memoirs detailing what they and others endured on Juno Beach and further inland at places like Buron, Carpiquet, Verrières Ridge, Falaise and St. Lambert-sur-Dives. The majority however returned to quieter lives by holding down a job in an office or factory, raising families, volunteering and spending time with grandchildren while perhaps trying to forget what they saw. Anyone who has spent time with a war veteran, especially from that era, knows it is easier to get them to talk about the good times or the lighter moments of being a soldier, sailor or airman. Those of us who were born after the war can experience something far more profound when a veteran goes beyond the easier memories. The experience can begin when you notice that the veteran's eyes are fixed on something so incredibly deep that it doesn't feel right to ask about it. You get the sense that there's a wall there, and that you are not part of that group of men or women (war veterans) who can go beyond it; all you can really do is wait for the story to emerge, if it does.
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