Normandy

Along with millions of my fellow Americans watching on television, I saw DeRonda Elliott’s (“D-day: What It Cost,” May/June) participation in the D-day commemoration. I saw the waves of emotion—pride foremost—that crossed her face as President Clinton read from her father’s letters. I saw the loving care with which, in an earlier recorded report, she held and displayed those letters. And as she searched for, and then located, the grave of her father, CpI. Frank Elliott, in the American Military Cemetery; as she and her daughter fell to their knees before the stone cross; as she said to him, “I never called you Daddy before,” I along with many thousands of others wept with them.

The poignancy of these moments was deepened by our having had the opportunity to get to know the Elliotts through their letters as published in American Heritage . Thank you for helping teach us to appreciate the human costs involved in that terrible and wonderful endeavor.