SWEETWATER, Tenn. — Eighty years after D-Day, a group is remembering an East Tennessee veteran for his military service. The Sweetwater Kiwanis Club celebrated Clinton Riddle on Thursday. Riddle crash-landed in a glider behind enemy lines in occupied France. Today, his story remains one that lives on in his hometown.
The Sweetwater Kiwanis Club held its weekly meeting with Colonel Mike Thornton as the guest speaker. The retired Army servicemember shared the importance of D-Day and the role Riddle had in it.
"What the Americans, the British, the Canadians, and Clinton Riddle was trying to do was to take back a continent that had been taken away by the Nazi Germans," said Thornton. "The people in Normandy, France, the people all over Europe have suffered for four years of Nazi occupation. And when Clinton Riddle and his army showed up, they were there not to conquer, but to free the nation."
Thornton said Riddle served in an infantry unit assigned to gliders during the historic D-Day invasion.
"Dad was 21," said Connie Moore, Riddle's daughter. "When he got drafted into the army, he went to the 82nd Airborne. And at that point, they told him he was going to be a glider man."
Moore said there was a point where she didn't hear about all that her father went through, but eventually, he shared his story with her and the world.
"He didn't talk about it for a long time," said Moore. "But then, you know, starting probably around my teenage years, he started talking about it. And in we traveled the world, him telling his story, the things that he did the different things."
Connie says she took several trips to France with her father and saw where he was during combat.
"We went to the field where he landed," said Moore. "I tell people that I'm probably one of the very few if not the only one who got to walk out in the field where their dad landed in both places. A lot of soldiers lost their lives. So they they were expected to, when the glider landed, crash landed, the members who weren't injured or killed was ready to fight right there. And they did."
She said one of the most emotional she and her father took to France was 75 years after D-Day.
"It was a little bit overwhelming because I took him back to France four times," said Moore. "The 74th anniversary, he broke his hip while he was there. So taking him back on the 75th, I told my family, I didn't know if I was crazy for even thinking about it because he was 97, 98 at that time, very fragile, but he wanted to go. So I took him. It was very emotional for me and also for him. Got to meet up with people that we had met all the different times that we had been over there and stuff. We got to sit on the stage during the President's speech and they really honor the veterans from all the countries over there. During this timem they are so appreciative of the liberation."
Connie said not only did her father serve in the military, but he was also a valued member of the community.
"He was a Baptist minister, the rest of his life," said Moore. "So he was a big part of this community. Anytime there was a funeral, and the family didn't have anybody he would volunteer to come in and hold the funeral. And he always participated in different military events here. In fact, they've dedicated a bridge here in Sweetwater to his honor."
She said she always attends events like this because she made a promise she would not forget the service and sacrifice of others.
"Anytime I get the opportunity, I want to tell what he and all of our American soldiers did, especially during World War II, that's the stories that I'm the most familiar with. He wrote a poem many years ago called, 'When the Glider Men Are Gone.' And he talks about all the different places that he had been in some of the things he had done, and he kind of ends with, he's going to tell our story when the glider men are gone," she said.