Collins in France

5 years ago

COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, FRANCE — U.S. Sen. Susan Collins met recently with Madawaska native Scott Desjardins, the superintendent of the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, at a ceremony to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion by Allied forces during World War II.  A 1977 Madawaska High School graduate, Desjardins retired from the Army after 20 years. He was an Army cavalry scout and tank crewman. In the late 2000s, he joined the American Battlefield Monuments Commission at the Meuse Argonne Cemetery in France, a WWI burial site near Verdun.  In 2010, he became superintendent of the American cemetery in Luxembourg, which commemorates the Battle of the Bulge, and on June 6, 2017, he became superintendent of the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. This site was established by the U.S. First Army on June 8, 1944 as the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II.