This ceremony, it was supposed to be about Stan Wielezynski. But he didn't even get to sit at the head table of his own restaurant last night, as a French dignitary put a medal upon his chest. And he wouldn't have had it any other way.

This ceremony, it was supposed to be about Stan Wielezynski.

But he didn�t even get to sit at the head table of his own restaurant last night, as a French dignitary put a medal upon his chest. And he wouldn�t have had it any other way.

No, Stan and his wife, Gigi, insisted that those coveted spots be set aside for the men with war medals pinned to their dinner jackets.

The special seats were for the men whose name tags each listed a beach they had stormed in Normandy during World War II. There were nine of them, all there to honor Stan.

They applauded as Anne Cappel, the French consulate in Ohio, awarded Stan the French government�s National Order of Merit, which carries with it the rank of knight.

She did so in recognition of his work honoring D-Day veterans over more than two decades. She praised him for generosity shown to her country�s liberators and for �cultivating the memory of this significant time in our shared history and the heroism of past generations to bring peace and freedom to France and Europe.�

Stan, a 66-year-old bear of a man with a voice that carries through the La Chatelaine bistro on W. Lane Avenue that his family opened 23 years ago after emigrating from France, couldn�t stop the tears as he patted the new silver and blue medal on his lapel.

He swept his hand toward his friends. �This is about you,� he said to the veterans. �The medal you see today is proof of how much France loves you.�

For the past 20 years, the Wielezynskis have feted the Normandy veterans on D-Day, June 6.

�It�s only been in recent years that people began to realize what we went through, just how awful war was,� said 91-year-old Don Jakeway. Jakeway, born on a farm outside of Johnstown, parachuted into Normandy and was among the first soldiers in.

He said that what the Wielezynskis do for veterans each year cannot be overstated.

�To know there�s still somebody around who cares, people who are grateful for what we did,� he said. �They don�t know how much that means to us.�

Stan and Gigi arrived in the United States in 1985 with two suitcases and three children in tow (Tad, Val and Charlotte. The youngest, Janek, was born later.) Now Charlotte Harden, she was almost 6 back then.

�We wouldn�t be in America � I might not be alive � if it weren�t for these men,� she said. �We value our freedom, and they saved us all. We really are the American dream.�

The annual D-Day event really began with her. On a family trip to Washington, D.C., at about age 11, she noticed a veteran with no legs sitting near the Vietnam wall. His handwritten sign: I�m broke. Help me.

She begged her parents for money and dropped everything she had into the man�s paper cup. Her mother said she was inconsolable.

�She asked over and over, �How is it possible that someone who worked for their country could be on the street with nothing, begging?�� Gigi, 62, recalled.

�She could not understand.�

Sensing their children�s passion was equal to the gratitude they had always felt, the Wielezynskis decided to hold their first elaborate D-Day event at the restaurant in 1994, the 50th anniversary.

There were some 20 or 30 D-Day veterans that year; this year there will be fewer than 10, though other veterans join in now. And each one leaves feeling loved, said 90-year-old Ed Turlo, who landed at Utah Beach with the Army�s 79th Infantry.

�This man does so much that no one ever knows about,� Turlo said.

The veterans come to La Chatelaine as brothers bound by battle, not blood. Stan said they share happy tales that are balm for all of their souls.

�They come here to our little piece of France to share their funniest stories, stories of their buddies,� he said, then paused. �And stories of the women,� he said with a chuckle, drawing a head shake and eye roll from his wife.

But it�s more than that.

Once a granite-jawed combat medic with the U.S. Army�s 29th Infantry, Marion Gray landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day. The Columbus Evening Dispatch said at the time that he was the first local soldier wounded in the assault.

Gray wanted to return, to visit the cemeteries and find the comrades who had once marched beside him. In 2001, the Wielezynskis paid for his trip to France, and Charlotte went as his guide. Gray waded into the waves that pounded Omaha Beach and sent a dozen red roses awash in the tide.

He said later that the Wielezynski family had given him the greatest gift: peace.

Gray, now 95, sat quietly at the table of honor last night. Stan teared up again as he looked over the table.

�This is just us, just Stan and Gigi down to the guts,� he said, pounding his chest over his heart with his fist. �We don�t do this for ourselves. We do it for all of them ... to pay them something back.�

hzachariah@dispatch.com

@hollyzachariah