Seventy-six years and about two hours ago, men not much older than the idiots out rioting and looting last weekend, and better men than you or I, were crossing beaches carpeted with the dead and dying, and dodging bombs, bullets, mines, mortars, and artillery, to begin kicking the asses of the Nazis occupying France, and bringing about the end of WWII.
If you ever meet anyone who served during that conflict, especially anyone who landed in Normandy on D-Day (an eighteen year old that day would be 94 today, so they're getting pretty scarce), simply say "Thank you."
Humbly, and respectfully, as befits their service, and that of those who never left Normandy.
AMEN, BROTHER.
ReplyDeleteMy father's field artillery company was still in the troop transports from America, waiting to be off-loaded onto the LST's on 6/7. He ended up in the Battle of the Bulge, but they were bypassed.
ReplyDeleteMy grandfather served in WW I. He and my father fought over the same ground a quarter century apart. They must have passed through the same towns. I wonder if they ever shared memories.
Thank you, Papa for the life you gave me and your grandchildren you never met. Thank you to all who served with you as well.
ReplyDeleteReal manhood means that sometimes you gotta perform extremely difficult tasks under dangerous and arduous conditions for little to no thanks.
ReplyDeleteWomen and children first is another way of saying self sacrifice. It's what men are called to.
Divine intervention. My uncle one of the twins was in Sicily with his brother buried in Nutuno Italy. They did not participate in the big one but were part of the first one. Unit later served under Patton when he made his hard turn to rout the bastards at the Bulge. He claimed they were some of the toughest fighting men he had ever seen. May God Bless all the Troops and Vets as he holds many in Heaven.
ReplyDeleteMy Dad and my Mom's first cousin flew B17s and B29s in the USAAC. Dad died in 2016. God bless them.
ReplyDeleteThank you for an otherwise forgotten remembrance of boys who became men, real men who deserve better than the today that many paid for withtheir short heroic lives.
ReplyDeleteAnd let's no forget all the sacrifices on the Eastern front. Stalingrad comes to mind and latter the battle of Kursk.
ReplyDeleteGrandfather in AEF in'18, Dad was in Pacific '44/45, I missed Vietnam. He was very happy about that. Used to quote Sherman that war is hell.
ReplyDeleteMy Granduncle Joe was a Glider Pilot. I can't imagine the brass ones that took. I was first MIA then KIA on June 6. I'll have a beer for ya when I get home, Uncle Joe.
ReplyDeleteTen years ago I was having lunch in a small Italian sub shop..in walked a couple of my age,followed by a large older man..whose flash I missed on his cap. Sitting down the back strap read - Donovan's Devils - I know my history. Slowly I approached his table and quietly set down my coin..I thanked him balls deep for his being...we had a chat for a while.. On this day I so recall those of that Generation..I consider that day as a Lifetime Treasure to never be repeated..and always with dust in my eyes.
ReplyDeletewith all this "black lies matter" b.s.; remembering true heroes is a blessing. if they still taught American history and Civics in high school... but I digress. The brave men at Normandy would look at the nation they fought for, and... vomit. So much of what is going on today is an embarrassment. Shame on us.
ReplyDeleteMy dad landed at Omaha Beach on D+18. He was in charge of a company of replacement troops. He said these young kids, mostly ages 18-22, were just as cocky and boisterous as could be, joking, making wise cracks, etc. But when they reached the top of the beach, and suddenly saw thousands and thousands of new graves, Dad said they suddenly got totally quiet. In that moment, they realized what they might be in for. In that moment, they stopped being kids, and started being men.
ReplyDeleteMy uncle told me a story last time I visited him in Paris. His father, he said, was a suspicious and untrusting sort of character. "Faut s'mefier" - 'must be wary' - was his favorite phrase.
ReplyDeleteDuring the occupation food wasn't always easy to come by in Paris so it was customary for people to stop by the family farm in the country every now and then and bring back fresh supplies for a while. My uncle's father had gone on such a trip, using the trains, and was on his way back with suitcases full of food. His local train brought him into a town on a fine summer evening; the connection to Paris wasn't leaving until the next morning. The hotel where he'd reserved a room was right there next to the train station.
He looked around. Beautiful summer evening. Not a cloud in the sky. "Perfect for bombing," he said to himself. He trekked with his suitcases a couple miles to the edge of town and slept in a field.
That was the evening of June 5, '44.
Next morning, the train station, the hotel, every building in the central part of town was rubble and dust. "Welp, we'll not see him again in this life," the family in Paris said to themselves.
A week or so later, he showed up with his suitcases of food, a bit dusty from the road. He'd walked the rest of the way.
"Faut s'mefier," my uncle repeated.
My grandfather was in the French Army. He was taken prisoner in '40. He and a couple buddies decided they didn't like it and busted out of the POW camp (he lost part of a finger in the process) and made their way back to home countryside where they lay low for the next few years.
Knightsofnee:
"And let's no forget all the sacrifices on the Eastern front. Stalingrad comes to mind and latter the battle of Kursk."
Sacrifices. Yes. Let's not forget sacrifices, like the six to ten million middle-class farmers purposefully murdered in Ukraine in the early 1930s, no farther from Berlin than Kentucky is from New York, by a Bolshevik party whose leadership was 90+% made up of Jewish intellectuals, which clearly could have had nothing whatsoever to do with convincing the Germans that maybe this Hitler guy had a point. And let's not forget that when the Germans invaded, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians volunteered to fight for them, against the Soviets, because they hated Stalin so goddamn much that anything else was better. And let's not forget how Bolshevism won, and committed another genocide and nationwide mass rape of German civilians fully as horrible and numerous as the worst of what the Germans did, and Stalin was rewarded for his monumental evil by being given half of Europe to play with for the next half-century. You ever notice how the British and French governments declared war on Germany for invading Poland, but allied with the Soviets for doing the exact same thing at the exact same time?
You speak good of the Soviets, then you can burn in hell.
Patton was right. If the war was to be fought at all, it should've been fought all the way and they should've just kept heading east.
The political realities were what they were. But don't pretend it was GOOD.
And what about Yalta, a deal with the devil? FDR was no better than Stalin I suppose. Churchill had his skelotons too.
ReplyDeleteMy mother first cousin, Gerald Redfearn went ashore first wave Omaha beach didn't get a scratch. 3 days later he caught a mortar round when fighting in the hedgerows, woke up on a hospital ship and his army days were over.
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