from Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe,

Recent days have been filled with D-Day stories, myriad media outlets detailing the horrors and heroism that played out on the beaches of Normandy 75 years ago, when Allied Forces stormed across the English Channel in the early morn of June 6, 1944, with eyes and weapons fixed on reclaiming Adolf Hitler’s Europe.

To stand there today, atop the cliffs where Nazi soldiers slaughtered thousands as they rained fire from seemingly impenetrable pillboxes, is an overwhelming experience for virtually all visitors.

In February of 1994, some 30 members of the US Olympic hockey team toured there for an afternoon prior to making their way to Norway for the Games in Lillehammer.

“Everyone has seen some sort of reenactment of that, read a book, seen a movie or whatever,” said Peter Laviolette, the Team USA captain in 1994 who was part of the trip that afternoon. “They’ve seen the devastation of the soldiers trying to take the beach . . . trying to take the beach . . . trying to take the beach . . . and that many lives lost.”

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