He’s one of only a handful of Americans remaining who stormed the beaches of Normandy on June 4, 1944, to liberate Europe from Hitler’s Germany.
Tom Rice, a 97-year-old American WWII veteran went back to the field in Normandy, France, where he joined 18,000 brave paratroopers, who parachuted into enemy territory. Many of them believed they wouldn’t survive that day, they did it anyhow.
From The Gateway Pundit:
CBS News reports: Their job was to prevent German reinforcements from reaching the front as the main invasion force stormed the beaches.
“Chase ’em out, run ’em across fields, through cemeteries, jumping over tombstones, chase ’em all the way back to the German border as fast as we can,” Rice said.
This 97-year-old World War II veteran jumped out of a plane to recreate his D-Day parachute drop: https://t.co/Af3eor2Qfy
"Beautiful jump. Beautiful flight. Everything was perfect." #DDay75thAnniversary pic.twitter.com/OL03WczXNZ
— CNN (@CNN) June 6, 2019
He has come back to the field where he landed that night. The story he now tells to current soldiers is of a mission that didn’t start well.
“It was dark, dark, dark. Apart from all the hurricane of all that fire coming up real bad. I’m glad they moved away from that,” he said.
Rice could have just accepted the thanks of the French nation here. But he had other ideas. He came back to jump again.
"It went perfect." A 97-year-old D-Day veteran just parachuted into Normandy — again https://t.co/ECOY9blAFf pic.twitter.com/zczPd6ZzY6
— TIME (@TIME) June 5, 2019
“I got a replacement left knee and the right knee is a little sore. But we’re going to ignore that,” Rice said. “I do this because I like to and it’s an extended dimension of maybe my personality.”