Hold On To These Moments
The most beautiful walk in the world
I wrote a poem about my 2024 trip to Normandy, France, with my daughter, Lucy. On that adventure, we rucked 80 kilometers (50 miles) to honor the 80th Anniversary of D-Day. The poem (below) says what I’m about to try to detail far better.
Rucking is the military-inspired act of walking while carrying a weighted backpack. It’s been a daily part of my life since 2011. Then, during the pandemic, Lucy and I started rucking together, walking and talking outside of time, through the silent, deserted streets. Rucking for me and Lucy became a bond.
When I decided to travel to France to do the D-Day Ruck, I mentioned it to Lucy, and she was all in. We agreed that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
We started in Brooklyn, New York, sans rucksacks. We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and up and down Manhattan as a warm-up. Then we flew to Paris, rented a car, and drove to Pegasus Bridge, where on the eve of D-Day, British Airborne soldiers landed gliders in a daring assault—capturing and holding the strategic landmark which was critical to the success of the beach landings.
We drove in light rain to Grandcamp-Maisy, checked into our accommodation, and walked out to the English Channel. It was a beautiful day, gray and misty. We hiked along the shore to Pointe du Hoc.
Though I knew the promontory would be part of our 80-kilometer ruck, I wanted to experience it without weight on my back and without a time constraint.
The path to Pointe du Hoc follows a multi-use greenway trail along cliffs where tall grass waves in the sea-blown wind. As we ambled along the quiet, rugged coastline, shafts of light penetrated the vast, cloud-swirled sky.
Pointe du Hoc retains the bomb craters and German casements of the D-Day battle where U.S. Army Rangers stormed and scaled the 100-foot cliff under stiff German resistance. We read all the interpretive plaques and memorials, and toured the barbed-wire-strewn battlefield. A heaviness settled upon us. We determine that when the going gets tough on our ruck, we will think of this place, and what happened here, and we will persevere.
The next evening, when we showed up at Utah Beach for the start of the ruck, the air was charged with anticipation. People had traveled from all over the world, trained and prepared for this moment, but we felt on the outside of it all. While everyone else was cliquing up, comparing gear and workout regimens, the impression we got was that no one wanted to get too friendly or talk to someone they had predetermined would not finish the event. The vibe seemed to be: Father-daughter team? That’s cute. They won’t make it through the night. Lucy said, Dad, are these people sleeping on me? I said, Yep. She said, Well, fuck them. Yep.
We left Utah Beach with the herd to Sainte-Mère-Église, where things thinned out. As dusk gathered under the famous spire of the church where U.S. paratrooper John Steele’s parachute became snagged in the early hours of D-Day, we teamed up with
for the long trek through the night. We walked down rural roads and autoroutes under light posts lined with memorial banners to American soldiers. We kept ourselves occupied in conversation as the moon rose, arriving at the La Cambe German War Cemetery at daybreak. We rested and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. As the sun brushed across the stones and hedgerows, we pressed on.As we trekked back to the seaside, Michael moved on ahead of us. Once again, we followed the Liberté Greenway to Pointe du Hoc and onto Omaha Beach. There, we reversed direction along the cliffs for the final march to Grandcamp-Maisy.
As the sun slowly moved across the sky, it was just Lucy and me. We talked and talked and talked. Any lulls in our conversation became anguished silence, so we kept talking to keep our minds off the pain. About two miles out from the finish, when we were at our absolute lowest, and our conversation trailed off to nothing, I pulled out my phone and played Eye Of The Tiger by Survivor. Somehow, the acoustics of the Normandy coastline acted like a surround sound speaker—music from my phone had never sounded better. The opening riff of the song hit us hard, like a bolt of electricity through our veins. We began walking faster and more purposefully than we had for the entire previous eighteen hours. Following Eye Of The Tiger was Tom Sawyer by Rush, and now we were walking on air. Next on the playlist was my all-time go-to, Over The Mountain by Ozzy Osbourne—I’d skated to that song in almost every single amateur skate contest I’d ever entered and never lost. The last song I played was Right Now by Van Halen.
As we approached the finish line, I told Lucy, Some of these people disregarded us—and now here we are—cross that line with a smile on your face and save your tears for your pillow. But I didn’t have to convince Lucy of anything; she strode in beaming while tortured faces looked on in disbelief.
said, Who smiles after walking fifty miles? I said, Lucy does.We came in at around 19 hours—not even close to being the fastest; in fact, we were towards the very back of the pack. But we saw the fast ones; some of them could barely stand while we paraded around, seemingly ready to do another fifty miles. Jason and I sat down and had a beer. He said, A lot of people didn’t think you guys would finish. I looked at him and said, I’ve never quit anything in my life—neither has my kid. Jason smiled and said, Cheers to that. We tapped our plastic cups together, and I thanked him for putting on an event that offered me the opportunity to spend such quality time with my daughter—something I’ll always cherish.
Brooklyn Heights To Pointe du Hoc
DSM to LGA
Brooklyn Heights to the Brooklyn Bridge
Brooklyn Banks to Greenwich Village
KazuNori
Get up and do it again
Tompkins Square
Washington Square
Little Island to The High Line
Hell’s Kitchen
Mama’s TOO!
Back through Central Park
Sugarfish
We’ve got to hold on to these moments
and make them last
Before they become the future
Before they become the past
JFK to CDG
Room service burgers, frites, and sleep
A rainy day at Pegasus Bridge
Grandcamp-Maisy to Pointe du Hoc
The Liberté Greenway at dusk
Sundown, head down, wild dreams
Crêpes and Americanos to fuel another day
Utah Beach to Sainte-Mère-Église
Marching under a blanket of stars
Moonrise
La Cambe German war cemetery
Sunrise
To the most American of shores
Pointe du Hoc to Omaha Beach
We’ve got to hold on to these moments
and make them last
Before they become the future
Before they become the past
Retrace our footsteps once more
Over hallowed ground
A lifesaving baguette
Eye of the Tiger
The most beautiful walk in the world
Sunset on the English Channel
You and me
Sleep until we can’t anymore
So happy we couldn’t feel sore
Crêpes and Americanos
Back in the car
Giverny with Monet
Paris along the Seine
Penne with smoked salmon and Perrier
It’s never goodbye, only until next time
And I Love You Always, my Goose
CDG to ATL to DSM
Brooklyn Heights to the Brooklyn Bridge
Pointe du Hoc to Grandcamp-Maisy
You and me
You and me
We’ve got to hold on to these moments
and make them last
Before they become the future
Before they become the past
Thanks for reading!
For the record, I was NOT one of the people who thought you wouldn't make it. What an HONOR to spend some time breathing that air with you and Lucy and so many others. :)
Miss you!