Tijdens de vrijheidsestafette zal er een bijzondere reisgenoot aanwezig zijn: Michael Van Ness.

De grootvader van Michael Van Ness arriveerde in Normandië in september 1944 en was tot december 1944 gestationeerd in Barneville, in een ondersteunende rol, waarbij hij troepen en voorraden naar andere eenheden vervoerde. Hij had als Generaal Major de leiding bij de Slag om de Ardennen. In deze slag was ook de Amerikaans Old-Hickory divisie betrokken.

Michael zal tijdens de ceremonies aanwezig zijn en ook een woordje doen. De hosting van deze website wordt door Michael mee ondersteund.

6 september
Michael van Ness heeft onderstaande tekst uitgesproken op de ceremonie in Caen:

A Grandfather’s Story

by Michael M. Van Ness

​I was born in 1953 into a military family. I lived among heroes, friends of my parents and grandparents were veterans of both the First and Second World Wars. I was taught by heroes, some survivors of imprisonment and torture beyond ready understanding. Few of these men and women spoke of their experiences.

​After my grandfather’s death in 1976, I read his diary written during his wartime service. I marveled at his description of his ship‘s arrival at St. Nazaire in 1917, and how the crowd of French men and women all dressed in black, mourning their dead friends and family, cheered the arrival of the Americans as the band played The Marseillaise.

​In 1944, he arrived in France as the commanding officer of the U.S. Sixteenth Corps. That day, there was no cheering, no band playing, and no crowds – just the sound of gunfire, the deadly business of war. In 1945, his troops liberated Roermond, on their way toward Germany, and the crossing the Rhine River. More about that later.

​Anderson survived the war and lived to see his three grandsons grow into manhood, the torch passed to a new generation. With his service, he and many others, so many others, wrote a great chapter in the cause of freedom. Now, it is to us, the next generation, to continue the story.

​It begins in gratitude, for Pierre Geelen and the runners of the Maastricht Athletic Club for their Torch Relay of Liberation, who are running from the beaches of Normandy to Maastricht, Netherlands. It is their way to remember and honor those who bequeathed to us the freedoms we enjoy.

​Today, we were at Caen to dedicate ourselves to this purpose.

​As the French say,

“Il y a longtemps que je t‘aimes; jamais je ne t’oublirai“