COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France — He paused to take a picture by the reflecting pool lined with well-groomed trees and walked past a flagpole flying an American flag high in the air. At one of the first headstones he came to, a white marble cross about waist-high in the 11th row of Plot B at Normandy American Cemetery, Mason Parris stopped to study the name inscribed on its back. Parris perused the names on other headstones as he strolled somberly across the grass.
He snapped a photo of the gold lettering on the headstone of Theodore Roosevelt Jr., the Brigadier General and son of former president Teddy Roosevelt, who died fighting in World War II, then walked to the chapel, said a quiet prayer “and just thanked all those guys for the sacrifices.” “It’s so beautiful out here right now,” Parris said later as he sat atop a wall high above Omaha Beach overlooking the English Channel.
“But I can only imagine the terrors and everything that happened on that day.” Eighty years ago, on June 6, 1944, Parris’ great-grandfather, Vemont Marqua, experienced those terrors firsthand. Marqua was part of the D-Day invasion of Normandy, when more than 150,000 Allied troops landed at five beachheads in northern France to start the end of World War II.
Last Tuesday, 10 days before he was set to wrestle in the biggest event of his life, Parris, an Olympic medal hopeful at 125 kg, joined four of his freestyle teammates and about two dozen other members of USA Wrestling on a day trip .