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Article: A D-Day Debt, Paid With Interest; 50 Years After the Americans Invaded Normandy, Henri-Jean Renaud Can't Thank Them Enough.
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- May 28, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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Henri-Jean Renaud doesn't drive his World War II U.S. Army jeep
to work every day. Don't be ridiculous. It just so happens that
today his car is out of order.
On the other hand, not many red-blooded Frenchmen keep American
war mementos oiled and gassed in the garage. Or fly an American flag
in the front yard. Or keep letters from Eleanor Roosevelt.
But 60-year-old Renaud does. In a way, D-Day never ended for
this genial, dry-witted pharmacist from Sainte-Mere-Eglise, the
first town liberated by American, British and Canadian forces who
landed in France on June 6, 1944. Ten years old back then, Renaud
found that D-Day became the stuff not of memory but of his everyday
life, a presence ...