Ninety-Seven-Year-Old Veteran Tom Rice commemorated the anniversary of D-Day by parachuting out of a C-47 transport plane over Normandy–just like he did 75 years ago.
“It went perfect, perfect jump,” Rice said after his jump. “I feel great. I’d go up and do it all again.”
WATCH: 97-year-old US paratrooper veteran Tom Rice, who served with the Army's 101st Airborne Division, recreates his D-Day jump in Normandy 75 years later. pic.twitter.com/qAth429XCA
— NBC News (@NBCNews) June 5, 2019
Rice jumped with a group of a couple hundred parachutists today in honor of the airborne soldiers who participated in the deadly World War II battle.
The Army Times reports:
Rice, of San Diego, jumped into roughly the same area he landed in on D-Day. He said it was dark when he touched down in 1944 and he can’t be sure exactly where he was.
Rice jumped with the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division on that momentous day 75 years ago, landing safely despite catching himself on the exit and a bullet striking his parachute. He called the 1944 jump “the worst jump I ever had.”
“I got my left armpit caught in the lower left hand corner of the door so I swung out, came back and hit the side of the aircraft, swung out again and came back, and I just tried to straighten my arm out and I got free,” he told The Associated Press in an interview.
97-year-old D-Day veteran Tom Rice, 101st airborne, parachutes again today in Carentan, Normandy. https://t.co/O32M4fcvlN pic.twitter.com/vLmDAumUpA
— The Hill (@thehill) June 5, 2019
