Joseph Vogelgesang was just 17 years old when he volunteered for the Canadian Armed Forces.
He was one of 14,000 Canadians who landed on the beaches of Normandy in 1944. Today, at 99, Voggesang has been awarded France's highest decoration.
Vogelsang was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor at a ceremony in Vancouver on Thursday to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings. But Vogelsang is modest about his past.
“I haven’t been through hell,” he said. “Just imagining the civilians who are caught in the middle of a war and can’t defend themselves, that’s what worries me.”
Surrounding himself with good people was the secret to his longevity and happiness, said Vogelsang, who had nine brothers and sisters, and later had three children, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Veteran Harry Greenwood, also 99, attended the event in Vancouver.
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“I was there on D-Day, five hours before the landing,” he told Global News.
Greenwood was part of a minesweeper escort group tasked with clearing shipping lanes ahead of the Allied landings on five beaches.
He joined the navy at 17 and was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor in France seven years ago for his return every five years to commemorate the Normandy Landings.
“When I go back, I’m not just going to the Canadian cemetery or the British cemetery … I’m going to go to the German cemetery because there are a lot of German boys there who died in that war who were not Nazis,” Greenwood said. “They were brave, too. You have to give people courage.”
The Legion of Honour was founded by Napoleon in 1802. Since 2014, more than 1,000 Canadian veterans have received the medal.
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