I’ve talked before about what making the pilgrimage to Normandy feels like. Stepping back in time to a place where the grass has grown over the bombed-out craters, but the holes are still unfilled. Reminders of the wreckage of war, the bravery it took to storm those beaches, and the haunting walks through the hedgerows in the days and weeks and months following the invasion.
I first visited Normandy as a young high schooler who knew the historical facts but lacked the wisdom to understand what war actually meant. I returned for the 75th anniversary and rucked 75km from Utah to Omaha Beach with Jason and hundreds of other ruckers. For the 80th, we brought our three children, and they all earned their first GORUCK Light Challenge patch on a hay-filled field as C-47s flew overhead and we simulated “I’m up, he sees me, I’m down” exercises accordingly.
Our kids loved that time in Normandy so much they wouldn’t even let us entertain the idea of not bringing them along for the 82nd, when I was given the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do a solo static-line jump with the first-ever all-female stick through Fox Force Foundation.
“Do we want to spend any time in Paris on the front or back end of Normandy?”
“No!” they all yelled in unison.
Okay, Normandy it was.
We rented a well-worn, character-filled home on the English Channel in Grandcamp-Maisy, loving that one creaky floorboard upstairs and the big windows overlooking a yard full of the most beautiful weeds.
The weather was typically normand: windy and rainy, then beautifully sunny. We had the right gear, so there was no bad weather (except perhaps getting pelted by cold, stinging rain at Pointe du Hoc on June 6 after witnessing an SF soldier’s promotion ceremony). We rucked to the bakery every morning, rucked to the little Carrefour, only ate dinner out once to get something tough to make ourselves (moules frites), and enjoyed visiting the local outdoor farmers’ and fish markets and cooking meals with friends. €15 bought three bushels of the best raw oysters we’ve ever had.
My jump was planned for June 5, which meant I had most of the trip to anticipate it. The jump with Liberty Jump Team for some of my Fox Force sisters on June 2 got scratched due to bad weather. The tandem jump the next day took off, but the jump never happened again due to poor weather conditions. All the buildup, and suddenly the possibility of not jumping loomed and overshadowed the growing anxiety of the actual jump.
Something shifted. The training versus the actual event. The realization that not jumping was way worse than any nerves that come with jumping out of a plane. I prayed for clear skies and the chance to do the thing we had set out to do. I got a fraction of the feeling those D-Day paratroopers felt when they heard, “No jump today” on June 5, 1944.
In the lead-up to Normandy, we started rewatching Band of Brothers. The second episode where Easy Company is in a C-47 flying through exploding flak and gunfire while going through the same jump commands I had learned made my palms start to sweat. I stated out loud, for my kids to hear, that I was going to do that exact thing in a few days (minus the getting-shot-at part, thank goodness). My youngest didn’t really believe me. My older two got visibly nervous at the thought. I reassured them it would be okay while fighting back my own doubts and fears.
Jump day arrived. Jason woke up early to ruck 26.2 miles with some buddies. He planned to be back in time to take the kids to the drop zone for my evening jump. The birds were singing outside my window, and I took that as a good sign. The sun was shining and the winds had died down.
Everything was moving on schedule: hair and makeup with Natalie at the Fox Force Glam House, a drive to the drop zone with all my gear and the other jumpers, picking out our parachutes (I got my lucky number, 005, just in case), LJT manifest attendance call, loading up on the bus to Cherbourg airport, some hurry up and waiting, five points of performance, “JUMPERS HIT IT,” plus four on-the-ground PLFs. Then finally it was time to don our gear and get JMPI’d, take some pictures, and walk toward one of two C-47s, Pegasus and TKTK.
I kept waiting to feel nervous. That uneasy feeling in my stomach. The lightness in my head. But all I felt was excited. Ready to jump.
We loaded up into the Pegasus. I was on the third stick, second jumper, and part of the first all-female stick to jump into Normandy. I was elated when the Honor Grad of my basic parachute course was slotted as the first jumper in front of me. I knew she was confident and would make a clean exit. I still wasn’t getting nervous, which surprised me, but also allowed me to fully be present and enjoy the moment.
The streamers went out. Then the first stick of jumpers. Second stick. It was go time.
I remembered the jumpmaster from my training telling us to keep our eyes fixed on the jumpmaster, and to make it creepy, so that’s what I did, lol. Clara got called up to the door and got the signal to GO. I handed my static line to the jumpmaster, put my hands against the sides of the door, and hit it like I meant it, exiting as vigorously as possible, straight out.
Out-of-body doesn’t fully describe the feeling of jumping out of a plane and then getting the most comforting jolt as the parachute canopy opens. I checked that I had a good canopy, gained canopy control by pulling my toggles down to eye level and then returning to high hands. I checked to make sure there were no other jumpers nearby and that I was falling at the same rate. (I saw from the video later that I was actually falling much more slowly. I floated down as the last one to land.)
I looked over the patchwork farmland of Normandy and marveled that I could see the spectators in the drop zone. I turned to face the wind and thought for a moment that I might drop right in front of the crowd.
But alas, I drifted a little more, mercifully over a barbed-wire fence and into a neighboring farm, where I had the softest landing of my life in rain-soaked tall grass.
A French woman named Aurélie and her barking Dalmatian greeted me as I started to pack up my chute. We spoke in French as she told me she had lived on this farm for 44 years but had never seen women jumping. I told her that we were part of a larger group of women jumping that day. I was lightheaded and overwhelmed with joy.
She told me I could walk around through her gate or duck under the barbed wire. I chose the latter to regroup sooner with my jump sisters and walk off the DZ like the Armageddon movie scene we had discussed.
My children and Jason came into view as I approached them through the tall grass. They rushed to hug me, and I was taken aback by how much my jump had affected them.
Jack kept saying, “Mom, you did it! I’m so proud of you.”
And then he added, “Your dad is so proud of you too.”
It brought tears to my eyes while simultaneously healing something inside me.
Normandy has a way of doing that. Every time I visit, I arrive carrying something and leave having set part of it down. At the American Cemetery chapel, an inscription reads: “Think not only upon their passing, Remember the glory of their spirit.”
It is a reminder that Normandy is not just about death or loss. It is about courage and what lives on afterward. Hearing my son tell me he was proud of me healed something I didn’t know still needed healing. Maybe because, in its own small way, it felt connected to the same lesson Normandy has been teaching me for years: that fear can be faced, that sacrifice has meaning, and that the things worth carrying forward are often invisible until we see them reflected in the people we love.
- emily
