Little Rock Air Show Returns to D-Day

A local World War II veteran took a step back in time, Sunday, at the Little Rock Air Show. Dr. Creighton Wilson and other spectators watched his old unit, the 82nd Airborne Division, parachute onto Little Rock Air Force Base, demonstrating the same jumps used to invade Normandy, 60 years ago. "That`s so long ago, I don`t remember a lot," said Wilson. But watching the Little Rock Air Show helps to jog his memory. "We jumped from C-47`s," he said. "I remember that in those planes you stood up and hook up your chute and line to the cable inside the plane." On June 6th, 2004, over 250 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division land at Little Rock Air Force Base--in memory of what thousands more of them did on June 6th, 1944 in the D-Day Invasion. Wilson was 19-years old and training to become a paratrooper in Georgia. "The air parachutes were pulled up to the tower, cut loose, then you`d drop back down. That was a part of the training, teach you how to land," said Wilson. He would later replace soldiers in the 82nd and also parachute into Europe. "Those guys back then, they had guts," said Staff Sergeant Dane Justice, a former member of the 82nd also and the grandson-in-law of Wilson. "They had guts these people out here would probably never know about. They got out of an airplane in the middle of the night." Today the paratroopers landing at LRAFB share Wilson`s bravery, many of them just returning from Iraq, now making an historic leap. "The squadrons that are dropping them off today are the same squadrons that jumped them on June 6th, 1944," said Lt. Col. Ed Shock, deputy air show coordinator. Now the legacy made by the soldiers from Creighton Wilson`s day can be carried by these soldiers still fighting for their country. "They`ve done a lot to insure we have what we have, and don`t take it for granted," said Justice.