Normandy American Cemetery

Thank you my friend MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D. for posting the documentary video focused on the USA Cemetery located in Colleville-sur-Mer, on the site of the temporary American St. Laurent Cemetery, established by the U.S. First Army on June 8, 1944.
"It is located on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach (one of the landing beaches of the Normandy Invasion) and the English Channel.It covers 172.5 acres, and contains the remains of 9,388 American military dead, most of whom were killed during the invasion of Normandy and ensuing military operations in World War II.Included are graves of Army Air Corps crews shot down over France'
Thank you my friend MSgt Robert "Rock" Aldi for mentioning me.

Military TAPS & Amazing Grace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nysnj7wdn5k
FYI 1LT Peter Duston Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. MSgt Robert "Rock" Aldi MSG Roy Cheever SFC Ralph E Kelley PFC Andrew "Tommy" M.
SGM Bill Frazer CSM Charles Hayden1SG Joseph DarteySMSgt Lawrence McCarter MGySgt (Join to see) GySgt Jack Wallace SFC William FarrellSFC Stephen KingSSG Michael Noll SSgt Marian Mitchell Sgt Diane E. SSgt David M.SPC Maurice Evans

My husband and youngest son did a "clean up" at this cemetery for an anniversary celebration with the Boy Scouts when we were stationed in Europe

A Lonely Cross
It was a lonely cross engraved: “Known but to God.”
In June, 2018, Alice and I visited the U.S. military cemetery on the bluff over looking Utah Beach on the Normandy coast where the D-Day invasion took place June 6, 1944. We were in France with the Washington County Children’s Chorus who were on a singing tour. I had brought my beat-up Boy Scout bugle with the goal of playing Taps in that sacred place. There were tour buses, a huge car park and easily several hundred visitors and no quiet or personal place for me to play Taps. Wanting to get away from the crowds, I followed the walkway along the bluff overlooking the English Channel to the farthest end of the cemetery passing row upon rows of white crosses and a few Stars of David each bearing witness to the soldier buried in that sacred ground. The crosses were arranged so that they ended on that single lonely cross at an apex of that remote section. I was alone with that unknown soldier and no other visitors in sight. I took a deep breath, breathed a solemn prayer and stood at bugler attention to play the very best Taps I could muster. This unknown’s grave was the farthest grave from the main Memorial, so I figured he never got to hear Taps where he lay during the various memorial programs over the years. As I meditated in that shaded glen, I experienced a feeling of awe and was reminded that freedom is not free. I also sounded Taps on each of the American beaches – Utah and Omaha, on Pont du Hoc for the Rangers, at several of the Division Memorials and at other locations. Taps caught people by surprise but many stood at attention with veterans saluting. The next year, we returned to Normandy for the D-Day Memorial Programs with Larry and Alice The programs were on a grand, once in a lifetime, scale compared to that simple solo of 2018. It seemed as half the allied world had turned out with hundreds of WWII vehicles and thousands of reenactors in WWII uniforms. The streets and houses of the Normandy villages were covered in US, French, British and Canadian Flags. It was like a replay of what the French call “Liberation Summer”. The crowds focus was on the hand full of D-Day veterans in attendance – heroes all. They were thanked over and over. We were proud and moved to be there as we remembered the heroism and the sacrifice in that sacred place. As we pray for Ukraine, we remember that freedom is not free.