We are here tonight at the Normandy American Cemetery in
France.
Tomorrow marks 80 years since thousands of brave American Suns
stormed the beaches of Normandy.
For more than five years now,
we have been documenting their journey,
their stories, their message to everyone at home,
watching as they make their journey back.
It is sunrise here on the beaches of Normandy,
where 80 years ago, in the early morning hours,
thousands of brave American Suns began storming the beaches of
Normandy.
They would keep coming for days.
Everybody was scared because of the long life we figured
we're going to have
could be ended with with one bullet or one bomb
or one mine.
People say, how did you get off that boat and
go in on the beach?
There was a job had to be done.
Somebody had to do it.
We did it.
I've never seen as many dead men
on the beaches that I've ever seen.
You couldn't stop and help anybody
because they kept hollering. Get off the beach,
get off the beach and get set to go fire
those guns.
Seeing all of these boys who was killed and
just laying there on the beach,
it was just just for a
little kid to handle and we were all young.
Man. I was scared. I didn't realize what war was
until that day.
It was awful. There was no sleeping on that ship,
so we were up all night.
We had to climb down the net,
big cargo net hanging down the side of the ship
with your equipment.
If you slept, you wind up in between and being
crushed.
There were parachutes and trees.
We knew the people had to be killed.
You grew up in a hurry.
For five years now, we have been documenting our World
War 2 veterans.
We lose 131 heroes every day in the US
Fewer than 1% of them are still here
in this towing garage in Vineland,
NJ. A quiet World War 2 veteran has been coming
to work here since
1964. Tim, how are you?
What an honor and a pleasure this is for me.
Oh, this is an honor for me.
Tim Canary is 102. You still remember you were
22 years old when you landed on that beach.
Yes, I do. What you were doing was you had
to move.
You keep moving. You didn't have time to think about.
That's right. He was a medic.
You were there to help the injured.
And there were many.
Yes. He shows me the photos and the notes he
took as a young man at war.
You wrote here. Bloody beach.
Bloody beach.
He was part of the 45th Evacuation Hospital.
It helps get them home.
Well, that's the thing, right?
That's that's the thing. There's a lot of them didn't
make it.
We spent time with Harold Himmelsbach too.
Raised in Yakima, WA, he is now
98. Harold, how are you?
It's an honor. He remembers landing on that beach on
big day.
It was the most dramatic time of my life
and I remember best and saw things that very few
people would ever see.
I was saved, other guys died.
And with him feeding me,
he was just 18. I remember I had to pick
up one guy's head,
you know, 'cause he'd been cut and so forth.
And you almost took it as a
the reality of who you were or was.
You knew you had to do these things.
That was just take care of your friend.
And that's we all did.
We were all Americans. The letter he wrote home to
his mother.
Dear Mom, I suppose I should begin this by telling
you I am somewhere in France.
So many of those young American soldiers kept Diaries.
June
6th, 1944 invasion started. Harold
Mcmurran's diary had no entries for the next 5 days.
He was with the 4th Infantry Division and he told
us he watched the medics trying to save his friends.
They were trying to perform
even sometimes they would be in more shape than the
men that's trying to take care of.
We all had what we called a buddy,
and we knew that that buddy would give his life
for us.
And last person,
one of those brave combat medics at the war,
Jake Ruser, who is now
99. Jake,
it's an honor. Dave, nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you, too.
Jake knows how many heroes we lose every day,
which is why he's on his way to a high
school history class in Downingtown,
PA, to make sure their sacrifice
is not forgotten. You didn't even talk about it for
years and years.
For years. I for 60 some years,
I never talked about it.
Why do you think you didn't talk about it for
so long?
Don't know. You all came home,
we got to work, we got home,
came home, went to finish our education and we
and we went to work.
Hello, Mr. Roozer, how are you,
the principal and the students who are now nearly Jake's
age when he was sent off to the war?
The world we live in today is no accident.
The freedom we enjoy today is the result of the
actions of heroic folks
like Mr. Roozer. The students fixed on Jake's words about
the combat medics who would go out into no man's
land.
German snipers waiting. A lot of people don't realize that
you were not armed.
We were not in armed when you went out in
the no man's land.
Yeah. Yeah, you had to.
You had to keep your eyes and ears open.
And there were times when the Germans took aim.
Their idea was to try to knock you out.
Do you remember losing any of your medics?
Oh, we lost quite a few.
Our medics. The students had their own questions.
How did you mentally prepare yourself to go to war
knowing that there was a possibility that you weren't going
to return back home?
You never thought about that.
You always went with the idea you're going to make
it through.
What would you say is something you gained from the
war and something you lost,
I think, again, made you grow up sooner.
I'll tell you what. You did an awful lot of
prayer.
At least I did. Thank you for your service.
I mean, you put your life alone.
Thank you.
The applause from those students now fuelling Jake on his
journey back to Normandy.
It's impressive, isn't it? Allen Kinder from Gainesville,
GA, going back, too, after answering the call 80 years
ago.
It would have been terrible not to have been in
it
at the time. Personal pride was important to everybody,
you know, Urban Locker in Oxford,
Florida, getting ready, too. That's my helmet during the war.
There's a reason he's going back.
People have to know that freedom is not free.
So I'm doing that now with my full heart and
conscious.
And back at that towing garage in New Jersey,
Tim is getting ready for the journey at
102 years old to go back 80 years later.
That's something that gets
gets to me.
80 years
and the people of Normandy
are still honoring us.
We should note here tonight that over the course of
the last five years,
we have lost some of the veterans.
We have been following their families tonight telling us please
keep their stories alive too.
They also told us they are grateful that many of
their brothers are still returning to Normandy.
Tomorrow here, I will sit down with them not far
from here on Utah Beach,
where they landed 80 years ago.