America's Last D-Day Veterans Carry Living Memory of June 6, 1944

Joe Picard, now 100 years old and living in a Rhode Island retirement community, is among the last surviving veterans of the D-Day invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. He served with the 552nd Field Artillery Battalion and landed at Utah Beach, where he experienced combat firsthand and later witnessed the death of a friend in Germany. Despite his age, Picard retains vivid memories of the war while struggling to recall recent events, a phenomenon he notes with some wonder. In his later years, he has dedicated himself to preserving D-Day as living history by speaking to schoolchildren and returning to European battlefields with the nonprofit Best Defense Foundation. Less than 0.5 percent of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II remain alive, meaning the generation that fought the conflict is nearly gone. Picard reflects on the contrast between the national unity that enabled the war effort and what he perceives as deep social divisions in contemporary America. Once the last veterans pass, the Second World War will join other historic conflicts known only through documents, films, and books rather than personal testimony.