June 6 marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the massive allied assault to liberate France and defeat Nazi Germany. Many families, even if they can’t visit, will be thinking about grandfathers and great-grandfathers, sons, uncles and cousins who fought and died here.
Taking The Kids toured Normandy 10 years ago. Please read our report here
Visiting Normandy is a lesson in the costs of war that kids won’t likely forget. There are 9,387 headstones in the American military cemetery above Omaha Beach. They include markers for 1,557 unknown soldiers, 45 sets of brothers and three Medal of Honor recipients, including Theodore Roosevelt Jr., son of the president and a 57-year-old general who led his troops ashore on D-Day and then died three weeks later of a heart attack. He is buried beside his brother, Quentin, who died in France in World War I.