At 98, D-Day vet jumps again, with eyes on the big 100


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GROESBEEK, Netherlands (AP) — Jump by jump, 98-year-old D-Day veteran Tom Rice is nudging closer to his goal of leaping out of planes at age 100.

The American who caused a sensation in June by parachuting into Normandy for the 75th anniversary of the 1944 D-Day landings was at it again on Thursday.

This time, his landing zone was in the Netherlands.

Rice, strapped to a younger parachutist who steered the canopy, jumped as part of commemorations for massive airborne landings September 1944.

He described their jump as "perfect" and said: "I'm going to do it until I'm 100."

Rice jumped with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division on D-Day.

Thursday's jump with hundreds of parachutists was to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Operation Market Garden, a 1944 land-and-airborne thrust through the Netherlands.

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