At a ceremony in Normandy marking the 82nd anniversary of D-Day, a 107-year-old American veteran stood before the gathering and read aloud a letter he had written home in the summer of 1944. The moment, broadcast by LiveNOW from Fox, carried a first-hand voice from the invasion back to the very ground where it once unfolded.
The veteran, Arthur Rose, served as a young lieutenant in the United States Navy. Now 107 years old, he is a D-Day veteran and a recipient of the French Legion of Honor, and he was among the officials and former servicemen invited to deliver addresses at this year's commemoration on the French coast.
The letter Rose read was dated the 11th of June 1944, just days after the landings. It began simply, with the words Dear mom and dads and kids, and went on to describe the strange experience of realising, about a month after he had first landed, that he might end up being part of the invasion itself.
In his own words, he had struggled to believe it. He kept asking himself what he could possibly do in an invasion, wondering whether he would be pulling engines in the middle of a battle or changing injectors. He had assumed that men like him would only come along afterwards, once the smoke and the wreckage had passed.
That changed two weeks before D-Day, when he was told he would go along and do whatever he could. He recalled how a stretch of French coast that had once been just another shoreline had suddenly been transformed into a vast harbour, filled with hundreds of ships and thousands of men preparing for the operation.
The letter described a steady flow of new men and supplies arriving across that coast, including equipment, food, medical supplies and ammunition. Reading it aloud so many decades later, Rose paused at one line he said he could not even remember writing, telling the audience that it was the best part.
He closed the letter with gratitude to the commander who had taken him along and with reassurance for his family, writing, Don't worry about me, I am well and whole and happy, Love art. The ceremony, which also featured an address by Defense Secretary Hegseth, honoured the veterans who returned to Normandy 82 years on.