BEDFORD, Va. – Today marks what would’ve been the 100th birthday of John Robert “Bob” Slaughter, who joined the United States military when he was just 15 years old.
At age 19, he would be part of the operation that would storm the beaches of Normandy, otherwise known as D-Day.
While he wouldn’t call himself a hero, his service earned him two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts.
However, he found it a struggle to adjust to civilian life.
“Many years later, he came home from the war and he did like many veterans do, he got a job and lived his life,” Aprill Cheek-Messier, the President and CEO of the National D-Day Memorial, said. “It was in the 1980’s that he began to have flashbacks from the war and realized that people didn’t really know what d day was and that was something he was really bothered by.”
Which is why he got to work. He published his memoir, Omaha Beach and Beyond: The Long March of Sgt. Bob Slaughter and even helped create the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford.
His family and friends have since republished the memoir in hopes of keeping it on the shelves so that Slaughter’s story and that of a D-Day veteran can live on.
However, one of the primary reasons Slaughter wished to write down his memories and create the memorial was so that he could give his fellow comrades a place to safely reminisce on the good days.
“Like many veterans, they struggled talking about the war, but to be able to - many years later - have this memorial here so that veterans can come here and share their stories with future generations is a critical part in being able to pass on this important part of history,” Cheeks-Messier said.
