Justin Duke: It was a summer to remember for Jack Lundy.
Lundy, a member of the Florence Rotary Club, was the team chairman of a group study exchange with Rotary International that spent a month in France.
“We spent all of our time in the district of Normandy,” Lundy said. Jack Lundy pays his respects at a grave of a fallen American soldier in Normandy.
Lundy took the trip with four women from around Kentucky that represented various professions like teachers and physicians.
While in France, the team met with various local Rotary clubs, politicians and dignitaries.
“They took us to various institutions of higher learning,” Lundy said. The team got to experience French hospitality and stayed with different host families every week. Before leaving for France, the team studied up on French language, culture and history.
“We came together as a team and we went through about six months of training,” Lundy said. The training paid off when meal times came around.
“We spent a lot of time eating strange food – very strange food,” Lundy said. Some of the stranger meals included goose liver and pig gullett. At each meeting, the team was asked to speak, so they worked on a special treat, Lundy said.
“They always loved it if we spoke French – we did our best,” he said.
Time as tourists
Along with meeting with various clubs, Lundy and the team also got to see a large portion of the French countryside and architecture.
“We went to so many cathedrals we lost track,” Lundy joked.
Each cathedral had its own unique architecture and many had their original stained glass that dates back centuries.
Some of the host homes where the team stayed were several hundred years old.
Special place at a special time
Because the team stayed in Normandy, they got to visit the beaches where Allied soldiers landed to fight back German forces in World War II.
“They are impressive,” Lundy said. “You begin to get a sense of what the men were up against.”
Many remnants of the war remain on the beaches and monuments to all the soldiers who died can be found all over.
To make the visit even more memorable, the team visited the beaches on D-Day where an emotional ceremony was held honoring the assault.
“It’s something you won’t forget,” Lundy said.
