Stories that leave D-Day: “Soldier held his stomach and said he would return home”

This Thursday, June 6, 2024, the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of D-Day. In Normandy, France, on the same beaches where 156,000 soldiers of the Allied army landed, 25 Western leaders gathered to pay tribute to the heroes, the fallen, the survivors and the nations that stopped the expansion of Hitler and the Nazis.

They have lived 80 years since that landing. But today’s return to Normandy for these veterans is radically different from what they experienced on June 6, 1944.

These heroic characters were received and honored by dignitaries such as Emmanuel Macron, president of France, or Joe Biden, president of the United States.

In Normandy, there were no bombs or enemy fire. Just applause. The tribute was for those living, but, above all, for those dead. Just a few steps from their graves arrived the leaders of the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada and a special guest, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, who are defending themselves, according to Biden, from the same tyranny that was defeated. for the heroes of Normandy.

“Make no mistake, the autocrats of the world are watching closely what is happening in Ukraine, to see if we let this illegal aggression go without consequences. We cannot allow that to happen, give in to the bullies, bow down to the dictators, it is simply inconceivable,” said the president of the United States.

Biden met with 41 American veterans who were part of the military campaign in Normandy.

They were all around 20 years old at that time, like Onofrio Zicari, who remembers the day perfectly.

“We disembarked and crawled along the beach. I looked and there was a soldier, he was sitting on his helmet and holding his stomach. It is something that one never forgets. “He repeated and repeated: ‘I’m going home,’” said the war veteran.

With the honors of the military bands and the flags of the countries of Europe raised as a symbol of unity, a message was sent to the heroes of Normandy: thank you for defending and giving your lives in defense of freedom.

María Teresa Aya, international analyst for Noticias Caracol, stated that D-Day is considered, from a historical point of view, as epic, because marked the moment when Germany began to lose the war, which reflected the victory for the allieswho retake the territory that Hitler had conquered.

“It took almost a year of work and, above all, a great deception on the part of the allies, who made Hitler believe that the invasion was going to take place along the border between France and Belgium, at the Pas de Calais, but it did not happen.” , the invasion took place through Normandy. “They played a supremely important role in this success before and after the war,” the expert noted.