During this whole trip, my newly-made friends and I kept making jokes about the crazy never-have-I-ever statements we’d have when we got home. For me, at least, I’m pretty sure that was my way at not freaking out over the unbelievable reality I was a part of.
One of the evenings on this trip, we went to a gala dinner with everyone involved in the program: from students, to normandy officials, to the veterans and their caretakers. It was decided that the students and young people should mix in to the tables, so we got to meet plenty of people that night and learn even more. It was there I heard someone discussing how, on a program like that one, it’s almost impossible to explain the emotions that you experience.
In my essay I wrote to apply to be selected for this program, I wrote about how freedom in our lives is easy to overlook. I wrote about how as I grew up, I began to define, for myself, what freedom is, and what it looks like in my life now, ranging from seemingly small things, like wearing what I want, all the way to big things, like being able to vote, and how it is our responsibility to notice, acknowledge, and remember the costs required to get us this far.
The biggest takeaway from this experience, for me, at least, is our collective responsibility to remember. Remembering, not in the sense of numbers and statistics, but of the seemingly little stories, that remind us of the humanity that we all share. Just like how it’s easy to look over our liberties, it’s easy to forget about humanity.
82 years later, many of these stories are a breath away from being lost, and as those stories go, so too will be the reminder of what so many fought and died for. It’s up to us to research, learn, and remember everything that got us here.
-Maryn Weber, "Freedom in Flight" scholar 2026
