Each year, depending on its numerical significance, interest in the D-Day landing of World War II waxes or wanes.
2014 was of particular note because it marked the 70th anniversary of the amphibious invasion of Nazi-held Europe and President Barack Obama was at Normandy for a multinational commemoration.
Last year, there was barely a mention even in our news pages, but over on Ridgewood Drive in Druid Hills, things were decidedly different.
It has been that way for more than a decade now. Come what may, one thing has remained constant: June 6, that time we know as D-Day, has figured prominently in this section of metro Atlanta.
David Maddlone, a 58-year-old Emory University computer programmer, has made sure of that.
Each year as the June date approaches, Maddlone turns his front lawn into a memorial to the soldiers who died during the mission.
The memorial is an exact replica of a section of the American Cemetery in Normandy with its white monuments, shaped into Latin crosses for Christian soldiers and Star of David monuments for Jewish soldiers, American and French flags.
The idea to erect the monument came to Maddlone in 2001 shortly after seeing the 1998 movie “Saving Private Ryan” and the scene where the much older Ryan returns to the cemetery.
“I was horrified by the battle scenes of Omaha Beach,” Maddlone said. “It put an image to the stories I’d heard over the years. It was really a day that changed the course of history for the entire world, and yet each year less and less is said about it.”
Then while watching a television news story about the 50th D-Day anniversary, Maddlone was shocked that no one remembered the purpose behind a plaque inscribed with the words “We will never forget the 12 Americans” that had been placed in a little village in England after World War I.
“It was just kind of sobering that in a few decades this little village was motivated to erect a plaque but no one remembered what the soldiers did,” Maddlone said. “I didn’t want that to happen with D-Day.”
Beginning in 2002, he started seriously considering reproducing a single monument out of wood. A neighbor, though, told him wood didn’t seem practical. A high-density polystyrene did. Not only was it more durable, it would be easier to cut.
With that, Maddlone decided to create a small section of the Normandy cemetery. He then wrote to the American Battle Monuments Commission, the agency that oversees all American service cemeteries, for more information. The commission provided details on the monuments’ dimensions and spacing, even the font used to inscribe the names of the fallen soldiers, their rank, division, and date of death on each monument.
“It became kind of a hobby,” he said.
After completing one prototype, he placed it outside one evening. The long shadow it cast across Maddlone’s lawn stilled his heart.
“That clinched it for me,” he said. “I knew I had to keep going.”
And so he did. Over the next year, Maddlone worked evenings creating the 42 headstones, two at a time.
With the help of a few of his friends and neighbors, he finished sometime around midnight on Memorial Day 2004.
They placed the memorial on the lawn that day and every year since starting on Memorial Day and ending exactly a week after D-Day.
Four years ago, he added a candlelight vigil to the Ridgewood memorial, where each monument receives a glass vigil candle.
“No other country in the history of the world has laid so many of her sons and daughters on the altar of freedom,” Maddlone said. “Unlike other nations, we don’t go to conquer. The citizen soldier that puts on that uniform and goes overseas, they go with a motivation, with good intentions.”
For his part, Maddlone never served in the military. Neither did his father, Joseph Maddlone.
The way he figures it, that’s exactly why he owes this honor to those who did.
“I owe them a lot,” he said.
We all do.
