Anniversary

We celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary on Saturday. It seemed a little weird to me to take off without the kids, but they preferred to stay at home while we drove out to Bedford.

Bedford is a small town which received national attention when its 116th Infantry lost 19 soldiers on the D-Day assault on Omaha Beach, with three more killed in action later--the highest loss per capita of any town ever. (Click here to read an account from a book I've recommended several times.)


Robert is a D-Day aficiondo. We've visited the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford several times in the past. The local Rubatex plant was a large employer in the town, producing gas masks for the war effort.


The day was gray and drizzly. We found the local cemetery and quickly recognized several names on headstones.


Captain Taylor Fellers never fired shot. Every soldier in Captain Fellers' landing craft was immediately killed.


Sergeant Frank Draper grew up on the "wrong side of the tracks" and played minor league baseball before finding his call in the military. Despondent over the loss of his eldest son, Frank's father later committed suicide.



Many names we recognized right off. Others we identified by the date of death.




From there, we drove in the rain over to Lynchburg, where we lunched at Texas Roadhouse and stopped in at Kohl's. We made a day out of our trip. It might sound like an odd thing to do, visiting a cemetery on our anniversary, but it was a nice blend of just spending time with my husband, combining things we both enjoyed, and wrapping it all up at one of our favorite restaurants--a lovely day.

May 22, 1993