Kentucky D-Day Veteran to Receive French Legion of Honor

[PVnRT]

Lexington Herald-Leader

"He (Patton) said, 'They're telling you when you hit the beaches to dig in.' And he says, 'You won't live to dig in. So when you go in, go as far as you can because the first wave will die anyway,'" Beazley said. "That's the message he gave us, and turned out to be right because we found out when we went in and started digging, we were under tremendous fire.

"I got to the beach, and I found a foxhole. It was like a dream to me. I couldn't hear, and night come, and I stayed in that hole. And I got to wondering what was going to happen. I thought maybe we had failed and they went off and left me and the Germans would come down and kill me at any minute. The only thing I knew to do was to get down in my foxhole and put my rifle between my legs with the bayonet up, in case they jumped in on top of me, and they would hit the bayonet.

"I never spent such a night in life as that, not knowing what to do. But the next morning, I heard someone hollering in English, 'Get up! Get out!' and it was the sergeant, and he led us on in."

[get the red out]

1. That almost made me cry!

Very neat story.