Mason Fyock helped lift 100-year-old World War II U.S. Navy veteran Ed Sandy out of his wheelchair and onto the sands of Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, for the first time since D-Day 82 years ago.

“I was on one side, his son was on the other side [and] we helped him down onto the beach,” said Fyock, a 2025 Cape Henlopen High School graduate and sophomore at Norwich University, the oldest of six senior military colleges in America. “He got up out of his wheelchair and just started walking like he was 18 years old again.”

For more than eight decades, Sandy kept his stories of the war to himself. But as soon as he returned to that beach, Fyock said, he told the whole tale from start to finish.

“It was one of the most moving parts of the whole trip for me, because I could almost see it through his eyes when he was describing it,” Fyock said. “When he described the events that unfolded, it was just pain, and you could feel that, and a lot of the people around me felt that, too. A lot of people were crying, and the whole beach, it was very quiet but very impactful. It hit you in the chest in a soft way.”

Fyock was one of about 15 students worldwide selected for the 2026 cohort of the Best Defense Foundation’s NextGen Program, which connects students ages 18 to 24 with WWII veterans for international battlefield return trips. This year, from June 1 to 10, the initiative hosted its fifth annual D-Day anniversary trip to Normandy with partner Delta Airlines.

The trip, Fyock said, was not for the students, but for the nearly 30 veterans, who ranged in age from 98 to 107. For 10 days, the students’ lives revolved around taking care of them and making them feel like royalty.

The experience was a high point of Fyock’s lifelong interest in military culture and living history.

Fyock sees it as his generation’s responsibility to keep alive the stories of the Greatest Generation, especially as their numbers dwindle.

His passion for living history really took flight in 2022 during his very first trip to Normandy with his family for his grandfather’s 70th birthday. His grandfather was an American history teacher and WWII enthusiast whose father served in the war.

On that first trip, Mason and his family embarked on a “Band of Brothers” tour, following the path that Easy Company, a U.S. Army paratroopers unit in the 101st Airborne Division during World War II, followed in the “Band of Brothers” TV series.

“We went to the different beaches and the American cemetery, and that was where I was like, ‘OK, this is what I want to do; I want to go serve,’” Mason said.

That Christmas, he received his great-grandfather’s World War II uniform as a gift from his grandfather.

“It fit him to a T,” said Mason's mother, Adrienne.

While Mason couldn't join Cape High's Army JROTC, since he was already in two other career pathways, robotics and band, he began feeding his passion for the military in other ways. He immersed himself in the local living history at Fort Miles in Cape Henlopen State Park, doing impressions at events like Delaware Defense Day and playing taps and the national anthem on the trumpet at numerous local veteran memorial services.

Sometimes, there were WWII veterans in the audience at those memorial services, and on more than one occasion, they came up, thanked Mason and shared a bit of their own story with him.

“It really had a profound impact on me,” he said.

As he pivoted more into local living history events, he acquired an increasing number of WWII veteran uniforms and accessories to enhance his representations as he shared their stories. He told the stories of lesser-known divisions and soldiers, many of whom most people would never hear about.

“Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it,” Mason said, sharing a quote his grandfather once told him. “You've got to keep telling the stories, or else people are going to forget about it, and they're going to repeat what happened.”

His trip with NextGen a couple of months ago equipped him with even more ammunition, as he called it – more stories to tell.

Delta Airlines, which sponsored the trip, was granted permission to fly a Boeing 747 right over the Normandy beaches area, which is otherwise restricted airspace out of respect for what happened there. The pilot flew at tilted angles so the veterans could see the beaches from a bird’s-eye view.

Then, when the plane landed in the private military airport in Normandy, the veterans were greeted on a red carpet by men from the U.S. airborne divisions, who saluted them as they came through, along with Brigitte Macron, the first lady of France, the ambassador to France and other representatives from America. 

Fyock said what resonated most with him from the entire experience was the French people's reception to the veterans everywhere they went.

“There were bands that welcomed us,” Fyock said. “There were hundreds, if not thousands, of local French people cheering for the veterans, calling them liberators. Women would run up sobbing and hug the veterans, give them kisses on the cheek.”

One day, the group visited a French high school in Cannes, Normandy. There had to be at least a thousand French kids there, Fyock said, and most of them had spent months learning English just to be able to talk to the American veterans to thank them for liberating their family 82 years ago. 

“Some of the most beautiful moments were [with] the French kids specifically, because I just have never seen that kind of reception to veterans before,” Fyock said. “I’ve never seen my own generation so excited to talk to these veterans, to thank them for what they did.”

From Fyock's conversations with the veterans, he found that during the war, many of them saw serving as their duty, something everyone had to do. Most just went on with their lives afterward, in many cases keeping their stories to themselves.

“All these years later, they're brought back to these places, and they're treated as liberators, as heroes, as legends,” Fyock said. “They're treated with such compassion and love and pride, and they realize, ‘Wow, I really did do something.’ Thousands of people showed up just to cheer them on. They couldn't believe this was all for them.”

Throughout the 10 days Fyock spent with the veterans, he got to know them as human beings, beyond their military careers. He recalled many late nights playing card games together, talking about their hobbies and hearing about their wives, the loves of their lives, most of whom they had outlived. 

“We all grew to love the veterans like we were all one family,” he said. “It was really beautiful.”

One of the veterans, 104-year-old Joe Schott of Fanwood, New Jersey, is now someone Mason calls a friend. They talked about his kids, his love for oil painting and his other hobbies.

Schott told stories of how in 1943, while stationed in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, he befriended a British family that had fled France during the war. He formed a bond with the family, including 7-year-old Sophie Woodhouse, and often brought them chocolates sent from his family in America. 

After the war, he continued to stay in touch through letters and Christmas cards.

On the trip this year, Joe reunited with Sophie for the first time in over 50 years at the Pegasus Bridge 82nd Anniversary Commemoration in Normandy. Just like he did more than 80 years ago, he presented her with a box of chocolates.

“It was incredible, just such a moving moment,” Fyock said. “The entire trip, to all the nurses’ disapproval, he refused to be in his wheelchair. At 104, he would walk the parades, and he had a sharper mind than some kids my age.”

The trip really hammered home the Best Defense Foundation's motto, “Taking care of the ones who took care of us.”

Many of the WWII veterans' caretakers are veterans themselves from newer generations; they've served in the Vietnam War, Gulf War and others. For Mason, seeing those newer veterans take care of the older veterans only made him want to serve more.

All four of his great-grandfathers enlisted and served in WWII, but not as commissioned officers. Mason hopes to become the first in his family to commission as an officer to lead American soldiers.

At Norwich, he's getting the specialized training he needs to prepare for a commission to serve in a combat arms role in the U.S. Army after graduation and carry on the legacy of the veterans before him. 

Through it all, he wants to continue sharing the stories of the veterans who gave their all in the fight for freedom.

“Each soldier has his own story, and each one is movie-worthy,” Fyock said. “It's important to tell these stories because when a man passes away, his stories keep him alive.”