The Albany Marching Falcons, the city school district's marching band, participated Thursday in commemorative exercises on the beach in Normandy, France, marking the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

"It was an amazing experience that's hard to put into words. Today was the first time in 75 years that they've done a parade on Omaha Beach on D-Day," wrote Bryan Cady, director of the Falcons and a music teacher in the city schools, in a text from the bus afterward.

The 49-student Falcons were the only band from a U.S. school district and one of only two, along with a 400-member ensemble from Florida State University, to participate in the march. The walk along Omaha Beach ran from Vierville-sur-Mer to St. Laurent-sur-Mer, both of them liberated in the Allied invasion of Northern France that marked the beginning of the end of World War II.

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In a Facebook video posted by Cady, the blue-uniformed Falcons are shown marching on a road along the sandy shore as they play a medley of patriotic tunes including "America the Beautiful" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

The band also performed a set of tunes in a ceremony earlier in the day at a D-Day memorial.

"While we were doing 'Hymn to the Fallen' from 'Saving Private Ryan,' there was a formation of planes that flew over us – World War II airplanes. . . . That was, like, a tears-in-the-eyes moment," said Sarah Bearden, an Albany High School sophomore and a flutist in the band.

The Albany group, which left Saturday for Paris as the first stop of their tour, is also scheduled to perform Friday at the American Cemetery in Normandy.

The Marching Falcons spent months at fundraising in an effort to attend the Normandy commemoration and related events, and the group's GoFundMe page is still accepting donations to finance the visit.

The experience "will be with us forever," Cady said in his text. "75 years from now, on the 150th, they'll still talk about how they were here." He described the students' performances as "incredible" and called the experience "the proudest moment in my career – my heart is full."

"It's pretty incredible," Bearden said. "It's like, a week ago I was sitting in a classroom reviewing World War II and how it ended – and now I'm standing out on Omaha Beach." In that moment, she and her bandmates were "truly being a part of history. That's something that very few people have the opportunity to do, and I was very lucky to have it in high school."

In preparing for the trip, the students met with veterans. After performing at the memorial in Normandy, they met another – and they thanked him. "What makes this meaningful is to be able to say 'thank you' to the people who did survive and say, 'We remember. And we won't let anyone else forget.'"