"The National D-Day Memorial is located in Bedford, Virginia — the community suffering the highest per capita D-Day losses in the nation. The Memorial honors the Allied forces that participated in the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944 during World War II."

This was taken from the memorial's website (https://www.dday.org/), but when I visited March 8th, 2016, I was in for a ride. I had no idea how big this day was in terms of World War II, nor did I know how much planning went into the invasion of Normandy.

So this was my experience.

The Shippensburg University Concert Band and Jazz Band was taking their tour to Nashville, TN, but used the D-Day Memorial as a pit stop during the more than 11-hour bus ride. When we arrived, there is a small building with artifacts and informational pamphlets. An old retired firetruck from the area of Bedford,Virginia, military clothing and tchotchkes to name a few things.

We got on our tour buses and drove up to the top of the hill and began our tour on foot. The tour guide our group had, George Woods, is a former Sargent in the Marine Corps (1950-57). He has been volunteering for the past year and was very energetic.

Woods started off by saying "This entire place you see here is privately funded. We get no local, state or federal money. It is also the only memorial in the entire world. There are museums but this is the only memorial." I had no idea. So many movies have been made about WWII including Private Ryan (1998) which includes D-Day as its opening scene, but the only memorial is in Bedford, Virginia.



By far one of the coolest parts of the layout is the garden. Now in March the flowers were not planted yet, but when they are they will look like this:



And this is what it looks like from satellite:



I really wanna see it with all the colors. Woods told us that it is an amazing sight. They have professionals come in for free to make it look as close to the shield as possible with colored pansies and various other flowers.

A replica of Dwight D. Eisenhower stands tall under Greek columns with a map of the beach of Normandy over his head in textile. The real map was made on several tables that only had part of the plan. Eisenhower spent over a year planning Operation OVERLORD (the name of the D-Day invasion) along with American and other Allied Forces; mainly the British.



Operation OVERLORD overview:
5,000 ships, 11,000 planes, 13,000 paratroopers, 50,000 vehicles, 156,000 men with 80lbs packs stretching across 50 miles of beach where cover was 200 yards away.
Oddly enough the date was originally set for May 1st, 1944, but was postponed to June 6th, due to incliment weather.

As if that was not enough getting out alive was difficult. The D-Day Memorial has 4413 names of the Allied Forces on plagues across the inner ring of the beach set-up.



However the best part of the whole visit is the arch.



The arch is shockingly 4413 feet tall. I find that to be so fascinating and so inspirational. Those men each had a role to play and they helped end a war that was advocating hatred. The Axis worked hard to spread hate throughout Europe and the 4413 men who gave their lives to stop Hilter's forces will not be forgotten.



This memorial was so much so go visit and learn. George Woods left us with this, "We need to educate. We have days where kids from camps from middle school to high school come by and learn in the summer months, but we got to reach as many as we can. Those who fought in this war are dying. The history is fleeting. Its time to take notes now so we don't forget."

Visit the D-Day Memorial.