In some ways this memorial is the most important 20^th-century monument to U.S. soldiers. Although Vietnam was a heartbreaking struggle, in the end the fate of the United States did not rest on its outcome. At Normandy, though, the U.S. rolled the dice on June 6, 1944, and wagered that it could gain a toehold on continental Europe and began the long, bloody push eastward to Berlin. Had it not succeeded, had the Germans pushed the combined American, British and Canadian expedition back into the sea, the world might have been a far different place.

Certainly the Allies would have tried to invade Europe again, though the delay in doing so would have given the Germans valuable time to reinforce their Atlantic defenses and shift troops to the Eastern Front to slow the advance of the Red Army. Conceivably, the Germans could have held out well into 1946 or 47, leveraging their possession of western Europe to some advantage in a surrender agreement. Perhaps the Red Army would have pushed the Germans back into Belgium and France, where, when the Wehrmacht finally surrendered, the Soviet Union could have easily added western Europe to its empire.

But these things didn’t happen. The Americans and their allies, at first with agonizing slowness, pushed through the German defenses and began the “breakout” that saw almost 1 million Allied soldiers pour through Normandy within weeks after D-Day. The memorial here, overlooking Omaha Beach, contains the graves of 9,368 U.S. soldiers. It was the first cemetery that the U.S. Army established in Europe in WWII. Sadly, it would be followed by others along the road to Berlin.

What to add to the journey: The site is 170 miles west of Paris and located near the towns of Bayeux and Port-en-Bessin. The larger cities of Caen, St. Lo and Cherbourg are all within an hour’s drive, and the British Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey lie about 60 miles west of Bayeux.