WWII vet reflects on D-Day jump that helped liberate France

He racked up several memories but the day he says he will never forget is June 6, 1944.

"I was scared to death," he said. "I'll never forget that day."

That's when he jumped into Normandy on D-Day with the 82nd Airborne Division.

"I was coming in over Sainte-Mère-Église at 2:30 in the morning," he recalled recently. "The wind was blowing (and) the plane was dropping up and down like a bubble in the water."

Merritt was the number two man in the door.

He recalls having a machine gun bundle between his legs.

"I prayed to God that I could live to (see) daylight," he said. "I thought I was going to get killed before I even got out of the plane. And then if I got out of the plane, I figured I was going to get killed before I hit the ground."

He survived the jump and gathered his equipment, but then saw a burning airplane falling from the sky.

"And I said, 'Oh God. That plane is going to hit me,'" Merritt recalled. "But he flew over me about 50 feet, but I could see all the backpacks flapping against the fuselage, telling me that the troopers had already jumped."

That was 75 years ago, but he remembers it like it was yesterday.

Merritt returned to Normandy twice in honor of what would be the liberation of France from Nazi control.

During a visit to the site in 2014, he had lunch with President Obama on the 70th Anniversary of the D-Day invasion.

His doctors won't let him return for the 75th anniversary.

"I've had two heart attacks and they wouldn't recommend it," he said.

While Merritt won't be traveling to Normandy, he has been invited to be the guest speaker at a D-Day celebration scheduled to be held in El Paso, Texas.