War in Iraq casts a shadow over nostalgic celebrations

A veteran from Maryland said his buddies won't drink French wine.
GRANDCAMP-MAISY, France (AP) -- His name was Frank Peregory. He came from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia to France, where he fought bravely and was killed. Sixty years later, heroism like his is still bringing people together.
Under the warm sun of a waning afternoon, French and Americans -- hardly the closest of friends this past year -- gathered before a stone monument that tells how the Medal of Honor winner captured a German machine gun nest outside this Normandy town June 8, 1944 -- two days after the D-Day invasion.
A tricolor sash draped from one shoulder, the local parliament member, Jean-Marc Lefranc, spoke in English to the aging veterans from Peregory's 29th Infantry Division who joined with townspeople to honor his memory.
D-Day "was the longest day, but it was also the dawn of another day for France and for the whole world. Thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for what you did -- and you did a great job," Lefranc told the veterans and their families. "Long live the United States of America!"
Current politics
Few, of course, have forgotten the chill that beset France-U.S. relations after their governments argued last year over the war in Iraq. One 29th Infantry Division veteran, 85-year-old Austin Cox from Crisfield, Md., said some hometown friends of his "even stopped drinking French wine" after France refused to fight with the U.S.-led coalition.
But in marking D-Day, the Allied landings that freed France from Nazi Germany's grip, French and Americans are treasuring a bond that has survived these 60 years, outlasting diplomatic spats that few -- excepting historians -- remember.
"Les Americains? We only think well of them. If they hadn't been here, what would Europe have been like?" said Marie-Therese Leruyer, a 78-year-old among the dozens of townspeople who turned out for the ceremony Friday at Grandcamp-Maisy.
She was visiting her grandparents when Allied troops, camouflaged with painted faces and leaves on their helmets, crept single-file along the sidewalks into this fishing port between the invasion beaches Utah and Omaha on June 8, 1944.
"The first thing they gave us was chewing gum. And they gave us their rations, boxes with everything in them for a complete meal. The chocolate bars were fortified with vitamins. We'd been deprived of that for four years," said Leruyer.
Emotional visit
Normandy is awash in such nostalgia. A seafood restaurant not far from Omaha plays Glenn Miller for diners feasting on its 60th anniversary "veterans" menu.
The veterans say it's a comfort that their sacrifices have not been forgotten. For them, the trip back to Normandy is deeply emotional.
Their bodies are growing frail, but their terrible memories remain.
"I was from a small town, and the only time I'd ever seen a dead person was at a funeral. And when I landed, they were just one on top of another. Some were still in the water and the tide was taking them out, and I'd never seen that many dead people in my whole life," said Cox, the Maryland veteran who disembarked in the second wave on Omaha on June 6.
And though their minds and those of Normandy look back at the past, some veterans worry for the soldiers now fighting in Iraq.
Some note that their war ended emphatically, with Victory in Europe Day on May 8, 1945, and a clear loser -- while the outcome in Iraq looks less certain.
"The boys from Vietnam they never got credit the way we did," said Donald Null, 80, from Frederick, Md. "Some of the boys are very bitter and a little hard to deal with, and I can understand how they feel -- and I'm afraid we're going to get more of them."
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