- Due to Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, ceremonies have been kept to a bare minimum for the previous two years.
- Crowds of French and international travellers have returned to Normandy this year.
- When D-Day veterans visit the Normandy beaches and other World War II sites, they are overcome with emotion.
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The joy of witnessing the French thanks and goodwill toward those who landed on June 6, 1944. They are filled with sadness as they remember their slain companions and the war in Ukraine, which is currently raging in Europe. A sage-burning ceremony near the shore at Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer was attended by the 98-year-old Penobscot Native American from Indian Island, Maine. Shay was a 19-year-old American who currently resides in Normandy. When he landed on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, he was an Army medic.
