Hours passed aimlessly as the summer sun beat down on UF’s Gator Band in a parking lot outside Omaha Beach in France. Clad in orange and blue with instruments in hand, they stared down an unlikely blockade to their overseas performance in commemoration of D-Day.
The culprit: President Joe Biden.
Trapped by French security and the U.S. Secret Service, the only place they could come and go from were their buses.
UF’s marching band “The Pride of the Sunshine” traveled to Normandy, France, to perform for the 80th anniversary of D-Day. World War II veterans, world leaders and people from all over also traveled for the momentous occasion.
The band was supposed to play a total of five performances, but it missed its two performances at the D-Day parade. Instead, UF band members were stuck in a cemetery parking lot for five hours behind a barricade of the U.S. Secret Service.
Band Director Jay Watkins said the trip took about a year to prepare and organize. The mayors from Colleville-sur-mer and Saint-Laurent-sur-mer invited the marching band to play in the 80th anniversary D-Day parade, Watkins said.
The D-Day parade was supposed to take place June 6, the actual anniversary of D-Day, but was moved to the following day to accommodate Biden and other world leaders coming to speak at the event.
“We were supposed to go over there and be the lead group in the D-Day parade along Omaha Beach and then we were supposed to do a standstill concert on the beach,” Watkins said. “All of that was canceled because of President Biden deciding to come back to Normandy American Cemetery that day.”
The band participated in a wreath-laying at the Normandy American Cemetery and memorial recital June 7. The Normandy American Cemetery is where the American soldiers who were killed during World War II were laid to rest. They delivered “moving” performances of the French national anthem, “Amazing Grace” and “America the Beautiful,” Watkins said.
After the wreath-laying ceremony, the UF band and other bands who participated in the ceremony planned to leave directly from there for the parade.
“We basically played one song and had to leave and then everybody was stuck in the parking lot at the cemetery for about five hours,” Watkins said.
After negotiating with French security and the U.S. Secret Service, Watkins said they were able to get out of the parking lot. However, U.S. Presidential motorcades also closed down all roads within 10 miles of the Normandy American Cemetery.
The U.S. Secret Service did not respond for comment.
Michaela Valenti, a 20-year-old UF music and business junior, was one of the many students looking forward to performing at the parade.
“We were just so disappointed because that's why we were there,” Valenti said. “We were going to represent UF and America, and we just didn’t get to.”
The parade was delayed in an attempt to give the band time to get to Omaha Beach, where the parade was taking place, but with the amount of traffic from the buses of students and other bands that were supposed to play at the parade, the parade had to go on without them.
“After the five hours they were like, ‘You have 30 minutes. We’re opening the roads. You have 30 minutes to get out,’ and it ended up being longer than 30 minutes because there was no one moving,” Valenti said.
During their five hour delay, she expressed discomfort the band faced, including not having access to bathrooms and not being able to leave the parking lot at all.
“We were trying to entertain ourselves but like, we are in the cemetery parking lot… it was just the worst spot we could’ve been,” Valenti said.
She also said nearby bathrooms were closed for the majority of the time the band was stuck in the parking lot.
Rebecca Sheffield, a 20-year-old Santa Fe health service administration junior, was disappointed in being unable to perform at the parade.
“I feel like that was one of the coolest things we could have ever had the opportunity to do,” Sheffield said. “He [Biden] knew there was a parade happening. He knew that people were performing in a parade and to put everyone's lives on hold for somewhere that you’ve already been… I don’t know, I just feel like it's kind of disrespectful.”
Though the band wasn’t able to perform at the D-Day parade, it was still able to make its other three performances.
The band ventured to the town Falaise, where it had its first performance of the trip on the anniversary of D-Day.
Their second was at the Normandy American Cemetery memorial for the wreath-laying ceremony.
For their third, the band had an hourlong less ceremonial performance at the Basilica of Sacré Coeur de Montmartre.
Sheffield said the trip was a “once in a lifetime opportunity,” and despite missing out on playing in the parade, the trip was not spoiled.
Dillon Welde, a 22-year-old UF aerospace engineering fifth year, said the parade still went on, but no bands were able to march since another marching band was stuck in the parking lot.
The bands also missed out on marching with World War II veterans for the parade, but many students were lucky enough to meet some of them on their flights.
The 80th anniversary of D-Day is the last decade anniversary that World War II veterans would likely be alive for, Welde said.
Though Welde didn't interact with the veterans, he heard stories from his fellow band members. Particularly, a 99-year-old named Irving was among other veterans on their flight from Orlando to Philadelphia.
“He was walking and talking and totally lucid… he loved to talk to people,” Welde said. “So a bunch of the band kids got to talk to him about all of his experiences. He was such a friendly guy.”
He said there was a big difference between the atmosphere in Paris compared to the atmosphere in Normandy.
In Normandy, the band was always being thanked for coming from America, Welde said, but in Paris he said it felt different.
“In Paris, we would walk around with our Gator merch, and we’d be like, ‘Oh God, there’s an American coming in’ … but there was a little bit of annoyance,” Welde said.
Welde connected his experiences to the friendly history the United States has with France.
“In all of the performances there was always somebody speaking saying, ‘America and France have always been friends,’” Welde said. “You can’t say that about a lot of countries. We’re historically very good friends, and you can see that in the different performances that we did.”
The band may not have been able to march on Omaha Beach, but nonetheless, it was a once in a lifetime experience, Sheffield said.
Contact Kamala Rossi at krossi@alligator.org. Follow her on X @kamalarossi.\
Kamala Rossi is a fourth-year journalism major and the Santa Fe reporter for The Alligator. When she's not writing, Kamala can be found surfing, watching movies and reading.
