Submitted by Stephanie Everitt on the 2013 winter session program in France and Switzerland sponsored by the School of Nursing…
This week we had the great opportunity to take a break from our Parisian lives and visit one of the most important sites of World War II, Normandy Beach. On the three hour bus ride our tour guide filled the time with the amazing history of France, from the Romans to the France-Prussian war to World War II. All the while, he told us how nurses and women in general were implicated in these wars, from the Red Cross to nurses on the front line . Two of the sites we visited were Omaha and Utah Beach, where the Americans stormed the Germans. German bunkers and craters from bombs are still present to this day in Normandy. At the American cemetery that overlooks Omaha beach, there are over 9,000 grave sites of the men and women who gave their lives to free France from Nazi control. The memorial at the cemetery shows relics from the war and tells the many stories of the people who rest in peace there. Today Normandy is a beach town filled with summer homes and touristy restaurants. However, during winter the deserted homes and crisp frigid weather creates a calm atmosphere that only adds to the experience of standing where history took place and hundreds of thousands of men and women fought for justice.
