FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. -- June 6 will always be a special day for Kenneth "Rock" Merritt.

On that day, 74 years ago, he took part in one of the great moments of history, the D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France.

Merritt was 20 years old and a paratrooper with 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division. Just before the landings at the Normandy Beach began, the 82nd made a nighttime combat jump to precede those landings. This was the first time that Merritt went into combat.

"By noon on D-Day our whole First Battalion of 508th chain of command was killed. From the battalion commander all the way down  to the First Sergeant," he said.

Merritt survived that fighting and two months later made his second combat parachute jump into Holland as part of Operation Market Garden.

He served in the Army for 35 years.

A couple of weeks ago, he was inducted, along with 20 others, as the first members of the 82nd Airborne's Hall of Fame.