It wasn’t a Caribbean cruise or a destination vacation to see family or friends, but a return instead to a time in the Steubenville man’s life he’ll never forget – going ashore in Normandy a day after the D-Day invasion began and fighting his way across Europe in the field artillery of the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division.

Thanks to a partnership between the nonprofit organization Best Defense Foundation and Delta Airlines, Moran was one of 29 WWII veterans from around the country chosen to return to Normandy, France, to commemorate the 78th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.

Now 97, Cpl. Robert C. Moran, Battery A, 15th Field Artillery Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division traveled with his granddaughter, Kelly Standardi of Steubenville, a nurse who was part of the medical team, and the other veterans on an all-expenses-paid excursion that ran May 31 through June 7.

The group left Atlanta in a Boeing 767 and landed in Deauville, France, to participate in a week-long program punctuated with honors, fanfare, celebration and the official D-Day commemoration on June 6.

“To date, the foundation has taken more than 100 WWII veterans on battlefield return programs to remember their fallen comrades and gain closure of a time in their life that had an impact on the world,” notes the website of the California-based foundation launched in 2018 by former Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Donnie Edwards, who was part of the trip along with “The Today Show’s” Kerry Sanders and thriller author Jack Carr, a veteran and volunteer with the foundation.

Another facet of the foundation is educating future generations about the heroism and sacrifices of those who have served through the preservation of their stories.

Moran and his granddaughter reflected about the trip during a recent interview in which Moran noted his interest was more curiosity than closure.

“I wanted to go, yes, to see it again,” he said. “I just wanted to see it again after all those years, see the beach I went in on.”

A 1942 graduate of Steubenville High School, Moran enlisted on April 3, 1943, with intentions of being part of the Air Force.

“I wanted to be a tail gunner,” Moran said. “I was way little then. I think I was about 5-foot-5 and 135 pounds so I enlisted, and I went to Akron and got examined in Akron, and after I got done, the guy put a big N on my paper. I said, ‘What’s that for?’ He said, ‘Navy.’ I said, ‘No, I ain’t like these other guys — I volunteered. I’m supposed to get in the Air Force.’ A week later, I’m in artillery training down in Fort Bragg,” he said with a chuckle at the turn of events.

A dining room table in his home is a makeshift display area of varied trip mementos, including a postcard each veteran received with their current and service photo along with a description of their military experience.

Moran’s reads:

“Robert C. Moran was born and raised in Steubenville, Ohio, on Dec. 13, 1924.

“After graduating from high school, Robert enlisted in the Army on April 3, 1943. He completed artillery training at Fort Bragg and went overseas to England with Battery B, 15th FA Bn.

“Robert and his unit landed at Omaha Beach on June 7, 1944, (D-Day+1). The 15th FA Bn fought for 73 straight days in support of the 2nd Infantry Division throughout Normandy without a break.

“They fought hard at Brest, France, and after the battle, they took a 770-mile road march beginning on Sept. 27, 1944, and arrived in Schoenberg, Belgium. They fought in the Battle of the Bulge and continued to fight at the Siegried Line. In March, they moved across the Remagen Bridge and fought further into Germany.

“By May 5, 1945, Robert’s unit moved into Czechoslovakia. By the end of the war, the 15th FA Bn was in combat for 336 days and fired 151,000 rounds while providing direct support to the 2nd Infantry Division and general support to several other divisions.”

Joining the military wasn’t really cause for concern, according to Moran.

“No,” he laughed. “Eighteen years old – what do you think about?”

Once he was overseas, however, he was not always so nonchalant, he admitted.

“There were times when you got a little nervous about things happening,” he said. “You see some of them bombs coming in and the artillery, just different things, you know, but when you’re young like that, you’re scared for 5 minutes, and everything’s ok the next 5 minutes.”

While his military experience wasn’t something he ever really talked about, some things stuck in his mind.

“One thing I never forget was after we got in with this LSD crew,” he said of an amphibious warfare ship, “We went in and it was a pretty good size and we couldn’t get close to shore, so we transferred into a smaller one, and I got in water this deep and went up the hill, and another thing I never forget we had a rifle and some guy’s coming down that hill said, ‘You’d better take that rubber off your rifle,’ — we had a condom on the end of it to keep the barrel dry. I’ll never will forget that. You hear some shots up there on top of the hill, and he says, ‘Better take that off, those snipers are up there shooting.'”

Facebook is how Moran ultimately came to be part of the trip.

Marsha Moran Wyckoff, Moran’s daughter and Standardi’s mother, provided details.

Moran belonged to a Facebook group with WWII veterans on which Wyckoff had posted a picture of her father.

“A very young man from Belgium or Holland named Arjan messaged us and said he was writing a book about the Battle of Bulge and wanted to include a chapter about dad. Our whole family became friends with him on Facebook and messaged back and forth. His family are fishermen. He has sent some chapters from his book he is writing. Next thing you know, other vets or people interested in the war, like Flo, who were Facebook friends with Arjan, started requesting to be dad’s friend and the rest is history,” Wyckoff added.

“Flo” is Florant Plana, a young man from Normandy active in restoring the Normandy Museum that Moran had hoped to visit to see something of his in it. “Dad gave him his silver cup he carried all through the war, and scratched engravings of where he was with a nail and even scratched my mom’s name on it. It is on display with dad’s information and picture at the museum now,” Wyckoff noted.

Last January, Plana and his camera crew traveled all over the U.S., starting in California, interviewing veterans for the museum. They ended up in the Pittsburgh area in March and came to see Moran.

That’s when Moran learned he had been nominated.

“They (the foundation) offered him the trip,” Standardi explained, “and each person they were taking could take a caregiver. At first, they said each one would be provided a caregiver. They weren’t going to let family go — it was going to be someone assigned from the Best Defense Foundation. My mom, whoever she was speaking to, said my daughter is a nurse, and my grandfather would be a lot more comfortable if he had me instead of a stranger, so I applied and I had to do a phone interview and a Skype interview,” she said of the process to be part of the trip.

“We traveled with a full medical staff,” Standardi added.

The overall experience for her boiled down to one word — “life-changing.”

“Being that we never really talked a lot about it — you being in the war — you just really recently started telling stories,” Standardi, 48, said to her grandfather, “we never had this conversation, and I’m not a real big history buff honestly, and I didn’t really know much about it, and then to be there and see it, it was, wow — emotional absolutely. Tears were shed about every day. It was amazing, the French people how they treated these guys,” she said.

“It was the closest I’ll probably ever come to being treated like a rock star — private buses and security everywhere and escorting us around, parades with 50,000 people to see them. It was just unbelievable. I’ll never forget it,” Standardi said of the experience that included the opportunity to bond with the other veterans, including two women, one of whom turned 100.

“One of them was a nurse, and I got to talk to her about her experience in the war. As a nurse, you usually do bond with your patients, but don’t usually get to spend a lot of time with them, so it was nice to bond with a couple of the other family members and the veterans. It was just very nice, probably one of the best things I’ll ever do with my life,” Standardi said.

“It didn’t bother me at all (going back),” Moran said. “I was surprised how flat France was. We were on a bus a lot, they were taking us all different places and took us to some cemeteries where GIs are buried,” he said.

“I wanted to see where I went 78 years ago and to go up the hill where I went, which was all dirt and sand and everything and now it’s all grass and chalets on it, so much different, and then I stayed in a town called Caen that we blew to hell and back 78 years ago because I remember seeing that town. It was nothing but rock and rubble, and now it’s like a metropolis,” Moran said.

“Most of the time what I witnessed, he couldn’t believe he was back there,” Standardi said. That included a Jeep ride. “They took all the veterans and myself and they drove us out Omaha Beach.

“He is not an emotional guy,” Standardi said of her grandfather. “He was matter of fact and always has been. I have never seen him emotional. He was more like I can’t believe that somebody would do this for me — have him on the trip. Some of the others, though, were emotional,” she said.

In Carentan, Standardi found herself reduced to tears as she pushed her grandfather along in a wheelchair in a parade where there were as many as 50,000 people lining both sides of the street, cheering and waving flags in appreciation of the veterans.

“He was passing out the cards they (the foundation) had made for each veteran – a little baseball-type card with their story on the back.”

“I especially gave them to the kids,” Moran said, “and some of the older nice-looking ladies, too.”

It was one of two parades in the group’s honor.

Standardi said the Omaha Beach ride was a special experience, but so, too, was a visit to an elementary school.

“Those kids were like all over you, saying ‘I love you’ and ‘thank you’ and yelling, and we go through this long line of students yelling and waving, and each veteran they took to a classroom to be interviewed by these little French students,” Standardi said. “The teacher spoke English and interpreted and they gave him gifts and took pictures and they had a time capsule at the school and that was where I really lost it,” she said of another tearful time. “They said 10 years from now they would dig it up, and each one of these gentleman’s pictures is in it. They had each veteran sign their card and did a little ceremony.”

“I was kind of surprised by all the people and the students thanking us for what we did all those years ago – I was impressed by that more than anything,” Moran said when reflecting on the once-in-a-lifetime trip.

Wyckoff said Delta Airlines was one of the sponsors of the trip and that first evening at its hub in Atlanta honored the group with a dinner and entertainment.

“Then the next day, they were on a first-class chartered jet nonstop to Normandy. I am so proud of my dad,” she said, noting she posted many photos of his trip — from cheers in the airports to American flag-waving from the French people. My dad especially loved the French children and was able to visit a school where they were treated like kings,” she added.

Moran was discharged Oct. 15, 1945, returning to Steubenville where he worked one day at Weirton Steel before his father “raised hell and told me to come down to Wheeling Steel.”

He and his wife, the former Margery Burns, were married 73 years before her death in 2018 on his birthday.

The mid-year trip apparently won’t be Moran’s last involving his WWII experiences.

Moran and Standardi have been invited to go to Belgium on Dec. 8-14 for the 78th anniversary of Battle of the Bulge, which Moran also was in.

“He will be celebrating his 98th birthday on Dec. 13 while they are there,” explained Wyckoff. “We are so excited.”

It is being orchestrated by another group and will be a small group — “maybe just four veterans — and they will fly to Paris, then provide transportation to the Battle of the Bulge area and stay in a big house near where my dad was when the battle took place.”