D-Day memorial holds unique place in Bedford's heart

Most people can remember where they were and what they were doing at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks or President Kennedy’s assassination.

Many Bedford residents share another moment in time that is refreshed simply by looking at the city’s most visible hill: the dedication of the National D-Day Memorial on June 6, 2001.

President George W. Bush attended the opening, throwing a national spotlight on the town’s legacy in the Normandy invasion.

 “It was quite an emotional day for everybody,” said James Vest, a Bedford resident and City Council member. “I’ll never forget it.”

In the decade since, the memorial and the town have become inextricably linked: The grounds honor Bedford’s great sacrifice; many area residents, in turn, say they consider the site sacred.

Danny and Nancy Johnson, owners of Peaks of Otter Winery in Bedford County, recommend the memorial to visitors who have not yet seen the site.

“We’re proud of it,” Nancy Johnson said. “It’s something that’s part of Bedford’s heritage and a national treasure.”

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The memorial has put Bedford on the map:  To date it has drawn more than 1.2 million visitors from across the country and overseas, starting with the more than 20,000 people who flocked to the site for its dedication 10 years ago.

The excitement of being the host city to the moving tribute and receiving a visit from the President of the United States was an experience the area will long remember.

 “It made us all extremely proud to be Americans and equally proud to be Bedford natives,” Mayor Skip Tharp said. “It kept us all aware of our unique spot in history.” 

The attraction was placed in Bedford because of the town’s heavy loss of life in the bloody assault on Omaha Beach; 19 of its men from Company A of the Virginia National Guard — known as the “Bedford Boys” — died during the first wave, the highest loss per capita in America. 

Mike Shelton, Bedford’s mayor at the time, said the 2001 ceremony and its long list of dignitaries brought a national spotlight to the city that he savored.

 “To be honest, I was in hog heaven on that,” Shelton said of the atmosphere. “I was eating that up like a kid lapping up ice cream.”

Shelton, who now lives in Roanoke, said he encountered Bush a second time in 2001 at the White House and the President remarked to him that Bedford “is the most beautiful place in the world” for the memorial.

On the day of the 2001 dedication, the Johnsons entertained more than 900 men who served the 129th Division during World War II, including several surviving Bedford Boys. The memorial, Danny Johnson said, is a great source of pride for the close-knit community that endured through the worst of wars.

Visiting the site still chokes him up a bit, he said. Ray Nance, who died in 2009 and was the last surviving member from Bedford at D-Day, was his mail carrier; Roy Stevens, another Bedford Boy who returned after the war, was a longtime friend.

“It doesn’t matter how many times you go, it still affects you,” he said. “We’re very blessed to have it here and we’re blessed to have had the Bedford Boys on that day.” 

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Along with embodying civic pride, the memorial also has provided a tangible boost to the area’s economy and served as an occasional gathering place for the community.

Thousands flock the streets of Bedford for fireworks over the Fourth of July each year that are launched from the memorial grounds, and its various events – it has held more than 200 since opening – draw many area residents as both spectators and volunteers.

Located on nearly 90 acres behind Bedford Elementary School off U.S. 460 in the west end of Bedford, the memorial has helped anchor the area’s tourism. The city and county placed the Bedford Area Welcome Center, where tickets to the memorial are currently sold, next to the memorial’s entrance because of its steady flow of traffic. 

“The visitors going into D-Day come into our community and spend money and that’s good for the businesses that are here,” said Bedford County Administrator Kathleen Guzi.

The memorial helps restaurant and lodging businesses, especially, and is a major part of promoting Bedford, said Sergei Troubetzkoy, the city and county director of tourism. 

Kathi Wright, a property manager at Days Inn in Bedford about a mile west of the memorial on U.S. 460, said the site is the premier local attraction for patrons throughout the year. The dedication in 2001 caused the hotel’s rooms to sell out, she said, and events draw visitors from as far as Europe sometimes.

 “It’s a major attraction for this area now,” said Danny Johnson. “Everybody benefits from this memorial being here.”    

Bedford City Council and the Bedford County Board of Supervisors each give annually to the memorial, which operates largely on donations. 

“It’s what community is all about,” Tharp said of the city’s giving. “If we’re not going to support it, how can we expect anyone else to support it?”

The city gave $160,219 to the memorial foundation in the past nine fiscal years and 13 years ago budgeted $158,000 for “in-kind” contributions of electric service, water and sewer installations, according to the city’s finance office. In the past eight fiscal years, the county gave about $200,000 to the memorial, according to budgets posted on the county website, and is set to give $23,750 in the next fiscal year.

Shelton said there was “never really any discussion of any potential impact” the memorial may have on the area when city and county officials were lobbying to have the memorial located there.

“To do anything less than what we were doing would have been wrong to the history of this community,” he said. “It was the right and proper thing to do for the memory and respect of the Bedford Boys.”

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MULTIMEDIA: D-Day Memorial, 10 years later