They did a story with my grandpa on the news last night in Denver. Here is the link in case the video doesn't work.
http://www.9news.com/news/local/art...ce-WWII?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|p
<object id="flashObj" width="486" height="412" classid="clsid
27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,47,0"><param name="movie" value="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="flashVars" value="videoId=966665461001&playerID=34762914001&playerKey=AQ~~,AAAAB_wnNRk~,WN9MweAQd_tBaI99JKgDAcW3bUx7peWv&domain=embed&dynamicStreaming=true" /><param name="base" value="http://admin.brightcove.com" /><param name="seamlesstabbing" value="false" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="swLiveConnect" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed src="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="videoId=966665461001&playerID=34762914001&playerKey=AQ~~,AAAAB_wnNRk~,WN9MweAQd_tBaI99JKgDAcW3bUx7peWv&domain=embed&dynamicStreaming=true" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="486" height="412" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" swLiveConnect="true" allowScriptAccess="always" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed></object>
WESTMINSTER - It's been nearly 67 years since Westminster resident Donald Allen stormed the beaches of Normandy, France. He was part of the Allied effort to liberate Western Europe from the forces of Adolf Hitler.
This week, he'll go back to those same beaches for the first time since D-Day. It's not that he has ever forgotten, but there is something, he says, to being on that sand again to reflect on what happened then, and life since then.
In 1942, war was raging in Europe and in the Pacific. Allen had just graduated from high school.
"All the guys my age, 18 or 17, were all eager to go smash Hitler I guess, and the Japanese," he said.
Allen enlisted in the Army and before he knew it, he was half a world away in England, preparing for one of the largest military operations in modern history: D-Day, June 6, 1944.
"This time they said you aren't fooling around. You're going," he said. "All the ships ... I never saw so many ships in my life, and they were all loaded with GIs."
Allen was to command an armored vehicle into German-held territory, but his landing craft never made it to beach.
"They dumped us so far out that I lost my half-track and it sunk. I had to swim ashore," Allen said. "The beachmaster came over and kicked me to make sure I was still alive and I said 'Yeah, I am.'"
Allen said many of his friends weren't as fortunate.
"Sometimes you wonder how you even made it, with all the bullets and everything flying," he said.
He said he had to maneuver through a beach covered in servicemen who had been cut down by enemy fire just to get to a vehicle that would eventually take him to a safe location.
"It was different, it really was," Allen said. "And you're scared. You try not to be, but you're scared."
But that fear is something Allen hopes to leave behind as he boards an airplane with other World War II vets this week and heads to Europe. The highlight of the trip will be a stop in Normandy, at Omaha Beach.
"We were there and I just want to see how much different it is, or if it is different," Allen said.
Allen said there's a good chance the locals will recognize him as a hero
"They honor you and they kiss you and they hug you," he said.
But, he said that's not why he's coming back.
"I'm not trying to be a hero," he said. "I was no hero."
Instead, Allen said it's the opportunity to spend some time with fellow soldiers and friends that he last saw 67 years ago.
"I think, my God ... all those guys there. I'll spend some time contemplating I guess. I was just a scared kid, so were half the guys that were there," Allen said.
Allen was a Tech Sergeant in the Army. He also fought in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II. It was Hitler's last offensive against the Allied forces - 81,000 Americans were killed. Allen said he went back to that battlefield with a group of veterans several years ago.
