As this thread mentions paratroopers, I thought I'd add this experience relating to the 82nd Airborne & Op: MARKET GARDEN.
Back in '06, I was travelling through the Netherlands, exploring the area where my grandfather served as a tank radio repairman with the Sappers and Miners. He spent most of the war supporting the Governor General's Footguards (Armoured). I found a museum just outside of Leiden (Leiden's a small town near Nijmegen) that was in the middle of nowhere. A couple of busloads of kids had just arrived for a tour, so I got lumped in with the group, and we were all shown into a lecture theatre inside the museum.
A man stepped up to the podium, and told us of being 5 years old, living under occupation, on a farm with his folks and siblings. His family had a strict rule: when you hear airplanes, come inside the house, and stay inside until the planes are gone. But on this particular day, he was sitting at the dinner table, enjoying a meal with his family, and he hears more airplanes than he's ever heard before, louder and lower than he's ever heard before. Against his parents best efforts, he rushes outside.
Looking up at the sky, he sees hundreds of planes and gliders passing overhead, and the sky turning white with silk parachutes. In his parents fields: gliders and paratroopers are landing. He said they were Americans, from the 82nd Airborne. He described their mood as calm, even relaxed, as they appeared everywhere, as though they'd been hiding in the woods for the past 4 years. His parents farm was at the centre of the drop zone, and the man went on to say that despite MARKET GARDEN not being viewed as a success, he'll always remember that as the day his town was liberated.
I found it touching that this volunteer was still coming out to the museum to tell kids what it felt like to be liberated, 62 years after the end of the war.
The museum (if you can find it) features kids wagons with glider control yokes for wheels, photos of local barns with roof patches featuring army air corps rondels, and family heirloom wedding dresses made from parachute silk.
In North America, we say: "If you love your freedom, thank a vet". If we could ask this elderly Dutch gent, I'm pretty sure he'd say "No, thank the 82nd Airborne".
As for my Grandfather, he never talked about the war, and I only got a peek at his service record. But I know that when the German defenders saw Canadians coming in their tanks, the enemy burst every dyke they could find, waited for the tanks to get immobilized in muddy fields, then picked them off at their leisure. Gramps must have seen some horrible stuff.