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Leah, on a tidal flat near Mont St-Michel When I first visited Normandy in 2005, I already knew my family had strong ties to the region...    My grandfather was one of the 160,000 Allied troops to storm the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944.  Although Gramps wielded the most influence on me in my formative years - I even lived with him for awhile - I know very little about what he experienced that day.  In truth, he only spoke to me about it on one occasion; an off-handed remark that has burned itself into my memory and haunted me for over thirty years.  I am sorry to say that w hat he did tell me is not available for public consumption.  What I can tell you is that it left such a powerful, indelible mark on my psyche that when I visited Normandy all those years later, I felt a powerful connection with the place.   But this is not a travelogue about the battlefields and blood-tinged beaches of Normandy; it is about the people I met and places I toured that made the northern