It was June 6, 1944. Eighty-one years ago to this day.

Selma’s Ralph "Shug" Jordan had already held a college head coaching job, basketball at Auburn, when he volunteered for World War II in 1942, interrupting his coaching career for his country.

Little did Jordan know that he would become part of the largest amphibious landing in world history. The project was top secret, so none of the men knew they would be heading toward Berlin via the beaches of France.

It has been 81 years since Shug Jordan and 175,000 other allied service members crossed the English Channel and went ashore in France to a welcoming committee of heavy German fire.

Jordan had already survived fighting with the U.S. Army in North Africa and Sicily. In the D-Day invasion, he was wounded and later awarded a Purple Hea

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