Four local veterans were awarded a huge honor on Wednesday -- for something they did nearly 70 years ago.
And the honor was not from the United States.
As the national anthem of France played at the Leominster Veteran's Center, World War II veterans Rocco DiGloria, Fernand Frechette, Charles Sanderson and Santo Disalvo received their medals.
Back in the day when all four men were young in body and heart, they went off to fight in the second World War, playing roles in the liberation of France from Nazi Germany.
"The values that were under attack by the Nazis were the same values that these young American men believed in; democracy, freedom and justice," Arnaud Mentre, the Consul General of France said. "It was under those values that they shed their blood reinforcing the bond between our two nations."
France honored the sacrifice even far after the fact, handing the National Order of the Legion of Honor to these four men.
"Seventy-five years later, but you know it brings back the old memories. Glad I was able to do what I did and glad to come home," said veteran Sanderson.
Of course, some of the men did not come home and some who did. kept the war inside for a long, long time.
Sanderson's wife, Marguerite, knows that from experience.
"It took him 20 years to begin to talk about it," she said. "He was burying bodies of Germans and Americans."
For many on the outside, the war almost seems a myth. But it's days like these when we are reminded that it certainly was not.
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