We are currently warming up the home theater and buttering the popcorn in order to watch two movies.

First just the beginning of  ‘Saving Private Ryan’.

Second we’ll watch the Hollywood classic ‘The Longest Day’.  I know it has flaws but I’ve watch all of the documentaries on DDay so many times that I just want to watch this classic movie.

I used to celebrate DDay every year by going to the US Paintball game called ‘DDay Oklahoma’.  About 4000 paintball player would show up for a week of mini games and then on Saturday play out the landings.  800 acres of land with high cliffs that the German players would perch on top of and assault the Allies as they crossed a pond in plywood landing craft.  It took a special player to willingly join the ranks that attempted those landings over and over again.

I was proud to be apart of the 82nd Airborne as the CSM of the 325th GIR (Glider Infantry Regiment).  The players at the beach started at about an hour after daylight, (safety reasons) while the US 82nd All Americans and the 101st Airborne units would load up in duce-and-a-halfs before daylight and be driven far out into the woods and a crossed dry river beds to be dropped in mass sometimes and other years we were kicked out in small groups to simulate winds breaking up the groups.  We were always prevented from seeing where we were going.  We spent the week before the big game learning the area from maps and a handful of walk thru trips.  It was our job to make it to the backside of the landing areas to pull German players from the cliff defence.  There was a Pegasus Bridge, St. Meregles and Caen all to be taken or held.  During the week in the evenings we’d listen to radio broadcast recreations from June 44.  Sometimes a veteran of DDay would arrive and talk with us about what he saw or felt that night and day.  It was powerful to hear those words from a soldier of that battle.  We always tried to honor all the men that are there that day at that battle.

I could go on, but the movies are about to start.