Historians say the 21 deaths from the Town of Bedford were the highest per-capita loss from any single community in our country. Recognizing the sacrifice of families and communities across the United States, the home of the highest per-capita loss is a fitting location for the tribute to more than 6,000 Americans killed along the Normandy coast on that fateful day.

Several thousand veterans, families and friends arrived at the 88-acre hilltop site near Bedford on May 28, 2000, to participate in the unveiling of the partially completed National D-Day Memorial - some two and one-half years after groundbreaking. Plans for the dedication of the completed Memorial Complex, including the Overlord monument and plaza, education center, amphitheater and ten sculptures, are set for June 6, 2001. The Education Center that will serve as an international repository for materials and literature related to D-Day and provide space for permanent and temporary exhibits.

The National D-Day Memorial Foundation is a group of veterans and volunteers organized as a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation and warranted by the U.S. Congress to build and maintain a memorial to Allied Forces who invaded the Normandy coast of France on June 6, 1944. It is charged with the design, construction and operation of the memorial provide a place of reverence and solemnity honoring those who sacrificed so much. It is committed to educating citizens of the world, especially young people, about the scope of the invasion; the role of individual American service men and women; the sacrifices made by the families and communities on the home front; and the critical importance and significance of D-Day.

For Bedford's two surviving D-Day veterans, both of whom still live in town, the memorial prompts mixed feelings. Roy Stevens and Ray Nance, both in their 80s, are glad to be recognized so many years after the invasion. But the memorial churns up memories, of lives cut short and of lives that continued in the shadows cast by that day.

"They've got the stories, that's for certain," says Lucille Hoback Boggess, a county supervisor now but once the kid sister of two men who died on the beach. "See if they won't tell you some."

Bedford was full of farm boys once, and Ray Nance was one. He grew up on a tobacco farm about seven miles south of town and went to high school in a building with an outdoor privy. He enlisted in the National Guard before the war began, for patriotic reasons certainly, but also to get out of fieldwork. "Two weeks of drilling in Virginia Beach each summer," the old lieutenant recalls, blue eyes twinkling even now at age 86. " 'Tweren't hard."

The United States entered the war in 1941, and Bedford's National Guard outfit was sent to England for training. The guys competed to be chosen for the D-Day invasion team -- "It was an honor," Nance says -- and wound up leading the assault on a section of the beach that the invasion planners called "Omaha."

Mortar and machine gun fire raked his landing boat, killing many of the 17 men on board. As an officer, Nance had been instructed to jump off first and lead the way. "That probably saved my life," he says. "I was off before the (German) gunners got the range."

On the beach, the company commander, Nance's cousin Taylor Fellers, was killed. Nance, the acting commander, was hit three times by shrapnel. The last chunk, in his foot, knocked him out of action. A sergeant carried him to a medic station.

Roy Stevens was a sharecropper's son and one of 14 children. He went to school through the seventh grade, then left to help his dad in the fields. He joined the guard "for the federal dollar" -- soldiers got a dollar a day each time they drilled -- and because he thought the uniform would attract women. "It didn't, but once I found that out, they already had me," says Stevens, 81. He was close to all the Bedford boys, none more than his twin brother, Ray.

On D-Day morning, as they loaded into separate boats, Ray offered a farewell handshake, just in case. Roy waved him off, saying that they'd "meet for lunch" in a village beyond the beach. Roy Stevens didn't get that far. An underwater obstacle sank Roy's landing boat and left him bobbing in the waves, floating closer to the German guns.

A boat rescued Stevens and returned him to England. He returned four days later, after the beach had been secured, and found a makeshift cemetery in the grass above the water line. One of the first graves he encountered was his brother's, marked by a small white cross with his dog tag nailed to it. "I went red with anger (then), ready to kill every German there ever was," Stevens recalls. "I've never forgotten how that felt, anger and sadness all mixing in together."

There's more, of course. How the surviving Bedford boys -- "average but not average" men, as Nance says -- went back home, found jobs, married and raised kids. The war, Stevens says, was something you didn't discuss, for fear of looking like "you were bragging."

These are the stories that Bedford's survivors tell about themselves. But the stories they'd really like told are about those who didn't live to tell them.

"We were twins, but we weren't that much alike," says Stevens, pointing to a pair of photos that seem to have been printed from the same negative. "My brother Ray was serious, more grown-up than me. He took care of (writing) the letters back to my mother and always signed both our names. He'd have made a great soldier."

Nance still wakes up nights, haunted, he says, by lives ended "before they even knew what life was about." "Call a name," he says. "I can still picture them." Jack Reynolds? Good soldier, little shorter than average, saw him raise up to fire his rifle, just before he was hit.

John Wilkes? A first sergeant who "looked the part," complete with barrel chest and scowl. Chewed tobacco. Would dress down a sloppy soldier and spit tobacco juice between the man's feet, for emphasis. John Schenck? A short man perversely assigned to be communications sergeant, which meant he was constantly scurrying to keep up with the lanky company commander, Capt. Taylor Fellers. "Duck Legs and Long Legs, that's what we called them," Nance says, smiling. "I can see still Schenck running to keep up on those duck legs and swearing under his breath."

Lucille Hoback Boggess was 15 on D-Day, with a heroic crush on big brothers Bedford and Raymond, who died that morning. Bedford, 30, had the soul of a class clown. He was the kind of guy who'd "argue with a signpost," as the local saying went, "just for the heck of it." In a photo she keeps on her desk, Bedford is fixed forever with a devilish half-smile, Army cap at a jaunty angle, a still unspoken quip just about to pass his lips. Raymond, 24, was the serious type. He'd sneak chocolates to his kid sister, then swear her to secrecy lest Mom and Dad find out.

On D-Day afternoon, an Army corporal named H.W. Crayton found Raymond's Bible lying on the beach, a strap mark from his pack still pressed into the leather. He mailed it to the Hobacks with a note saying he was sure Raymond was all right. The note and the Bible arrived days after a telegram reporting that he was not.

"Their faces are forever young," says Boggess, quoting a song written about the Bedford boys by Virginian Allan Barber. "I often find myself thinking -- what would life be like if they had lived?"

Boggess, Stevens and Nance are taking different approaches to the dedication of the National D-Day Memorial. Boggess and Stevens plan to be on the dais to greet the dignitaries, a sharp contrast to the many years they marked June 6 with a small family dinner.

Nance won't go. At least 10,000 people are expected, and he doesn't like crowds. He's also troubled by the focus on Bedford's collective casualties. It's as if, he says, the only thing worth remembering is that "they all died." "These were lives, short ones, maybe, but these people were all individuals," he says. "They're still that way to me."

Patriotic category Leora Posner, 14, of Torrance, Calif., is a 9th-grader at the Environmental Charter High School in Lawndale, Calif. "Patriot" Your 18th birthday Away from home Fort Benning Combat Training Tired. Alone. Chose this life of service With morning P.T. done Life had new meaning It was nine one-one 0 one Just another birthday Another year It defined your life And the nation you hold dear Pray you'll be followed By other Patriots true I feel safer knowing you Serve the red white blue Just your little sister Old enough to know Could lose you instantly Wherever you may go They woke sleepy dragon Now the Eagle flies You graduated Airborne The warbird in your eyes

Song: Have You Forgotten?

By Daryl Worley



Written by Darryl Worley and Wynn Varble

It's all about love and family and our hero's serving over seas to protect our freedom. Here's a video tear jerker I found on YouTube. Get your whole family to watch it together. It's about ten minutes long, but a treasure. May God Bless America, and our troops.