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Normandy trip with Michigan football beyond words: Postcard from Paris

The Michigan football team participates in a ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery, U.S. soldiers who died during the D-Day landings lie.

COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France — It's near impossible to understand and it's beyond difficult to put in perspective.

But standing near a beach in Normandy, with rain spraying and wind whipping through the air, the weight of what happened here 73 years ago hits awfully hard.

Like so many people, I had a relative who fought in World War II. My late grandfather, William Baumgardner Sr., wasn't one of the soldiers who hit a beach near Normandy on June 6, 1944.