Tami’s email was a full expression of how both Claudia and myself felt about how professionally our arrangements were handled by all concerned. I wanted to just add that the one day trip that Claudia and I made to the beaches of Normandy (while the kids knocked themselves out at Euro Disney) was an emotional highlight.  Our guide, Alain, was phenomenal.  We had visited France, both Paris and the French Riviera, three times before but had never made it to the coast of Normandy. I personally had always wanted to pay my respects to the soldiers of my father’s generation, including two of my uncles who had had joined the American armed forces and served both at home and abroad in Europe during the second World War.  There really are no words to express how meaningful it was for me to have walked and stood upon the hallowed grounds upon which so many Allied soldiers had fought and died there. It was fitting that the day we chose was overcast and somewhat windy with the unrealized threat of rain lurking behind the clouds, similar to the weather in the early morning of the June 6, 1944 D-Day invasion. Alain was not only a dutiful guide and teacher but, most appropriately for me, a man who clearly held in his heart a humbleness and deep respect for that which we could only imagine had taken place where we stood 78 years before.

Thank you all, once again, for your efforts on our behalf.