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Times Insider<\/a> explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.<\/p>\n I found myself getting emotional these past few weeks, covering the D-Day commemorations and celebrations in Normandy.<\/p>\n I kept thinking of Jim Bennett.<\/p>\n Jim was my husband\u2019s grandfather. In the family, he was known as a Renaissance man \u2014 an investment adviser who preferred to build boats, cook doughnuts over a wood stove and grow giant zucchinis. He was also a World War II veteran with the Canadian artillery who landed on what would become known as Juno Beach on June 6, 1944.<\/p>\n He was in charge of some 100 men, operating tanks whose treads left marks on the sidewalks of Courseulles-sur-Mer still visible in places today.<\/p>\n After the Normandy landings, he spent weeks bogged down in fighting in Caen \u2014 a city so pounded by bombs, molten lead dripped from buildings. He didn\u2019t like to talk about the war. One of the few stories he told was of V-E Day. He found himself by a barn, and took a horse out for a ride along the beach to remind himself there was life.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He never went back to Normandy. He said his visit in 1944 was hell, and he had no need to repeat it.<\/p>\n I wish he had. I think he might have found it healing. He certainly would have been overwhelmed by the reception waiting for him.<\/p>\n As a New York Times correspondent based in Paris, I spent about a week in Normandy to cover the 80th anniversary of June 6, 1944 \u2014 when 156,000 Allied soldiers landed on the Nazi-occupied beaches and surrounding countryside, and then moved inland. It proved a critical turning point in the war.<\/p>\n Among my stops was the tarmac on the little Deauville airport, where Delta Air Lines was scheduled to land, bringing 58 American veterans. On June 3, it felt a bit like a fairground: There was an honor guard, an army band playing swing tunes from the 1930s and a local re-enactment group dressed in authentic World War II uniforms. As we waited, I wandered the crowd, doing interviews. Every French person I talked to broke into tears \u2014 partly because the moment stirred their own family stories of the war, but also from sheer gratitude.<\/p>\n Christelle Marie, a teacher at a nearby primary school who had brought her class, wept while telling me about growing up near Juno Beach. She often saw older men pacing the shoreline, searching for the exact spot where they had come ashore and witnessed a comrade die, she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The enormity of their pain and loss had been imprinted on her. \u201cThe duty to remember is so important,\u201d she said, weeping. \u201cIt\u2019s an honor to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n At 47, she was born decades after the war.<\/p>\n I wondered how Jim would have processed her words. Would it have removed a small bit of his pain?<\/p>\n In all the little towns and villages, the sense of adoration for the 200 or so returning World War II veterans bordered on mania. It was like they were aging rock stars, come to give concerts.<\/p>\n