A Day In June. June 6, 1944

[Thomas Promise]

Today marks the 69th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy. Over 180,000 allied soldiers invaded the Normandy beaches to help end WW11. There are not too many of these brave guys left now. I salute the brave and courageous ordinary men and women that went foward and sacrificed so much. You are my true heroes! Thank you.

 

http://youtu.be/wlfZ9NoyIuM

[Mick]

My Dad took part in the D-Day invasion. Came over on the second day and landed on Omaha Beach. He was an ambulance driver serving in a company that was a special detachment assigned to duty directly under Ike. They basically went wherever Ike told them to go. His first five days were spent locating and picking up downed paratroopers, often behind enemy lines. My Dad often says that things were so confused the first week or so that it was difficult to tell where enemy lines were - hell, basically anything inland from the beach was behind enemy lines if you stop and think about it. My Dad is still alive and kicking - age 93 and living on his own down in Florida. Thanks for thinking of the WWII vets Tom.

[warpedbored]

My dad walked across Italy carrying a BAR. The BAR was supposed to be a 2 or 3 man carry. One to carry the weapon and 1 or 2 more to carry the ammo and tripod. My dad carried it all because he didn't want his buddies to be a target for enemy snipers. Toughest man I've ever known. He refused Novocain at the dentist because it cost too much. Tom Brokaw called them "The Greatest Generation". I think he was right.

[dnoblett]

Ronald Regan gave a great speech there on the 40th

http://youtu.be/1Leb7ynduCU

[tsap seui]

Last night I awoke in a panic and a sweat....ran into the damn wall once again trying to escape yet another burning helicopter..picked myself up off the floor, got my bearing again (with Wenyan not in the home I didn't come to with my head in her lap and her softly rubbing my head telling me I was okay and with her), and I went in at 3am and turned on the Military channel.

 

Oh my, not exactly what I needed to see right after my visit from my old friend Mr. PTSD, but I stayed the course and watched D-Day as told by survivors along with actual and simulated footage. Funny (weird) how after the shock of realizing what I was watching the footage calmed me....yeah, I'm crazy. One guy told of seeing a medic (15 years old who lied about his age) get cut down right beside him as he worked on a wounded guy...I shed a few tears along with that old warrior, and with the actual tales from the other survivors.

 

Those first to go in on those beaches paid a terrible price. As with any war situations there were so many tales of heroic bravery from the common soldiers and tales of extreme stupidity of the higher ups...but it was what it was and the soldiers did the best they could with what they had. We lost so many paratroopers from drowning as they landed in Rommel's flooded fields and couldn't get out of the straps to their parachutes (which were hard enough to do on dry ground with no one shooting at you (the British it turned out had a single mechanism to undo their parachutes)....I could go on but it's useless, just another reminder that pisses me off to no end....the drowned tak crews, soldiers weighted down over 100 pounds being dropped in 10 and 15 foot deep water sinking like rocks, many never resurfacing to even make it ashore.

 

What a horrific thing they all had to go through. While PTSD never got mentioned directly, many of the older warriors spoke of it as they told of their dreams, how they never got certain images out of their mind, and how they were affected by certain sounds and visuals in their life even so many years later.

 

Stupidity in war is hell, it is so hard for me to see the loss of life before a soldier can even engage the enemy...rips my soul out. Reminds me of the way the Marines would lose 40 or 50 Marines in a single Chinook type chopper crash, even though they could have used Hueys. Just before D Day the Air Force arrogantly saying they could put in bomb in a pickle jar from 10,000 feet....yet broken clouds made them miss the German arty by a mile and a half when they were told to wait 5 to 15 seconds to drop their load once they saw the shore...our guys got slaughtered by German arty that went untouched....the Navy telling the battleship commanders to not fire on the German Arty and pillboxes until later in the day (they wanted them to keep watch well off shore on the troops who would later go in) such madness.....it goes on and on and on. Along with my nightmares, I will always have an unmitigated hatred of stupidity and arrogance from clowns sitting safely in the rear calling the shots.

 

One general on one of the beaches came in on a later wave and when he reached the pill boxes with their machine guns pinning down and killing the men around him...he saw that the men around him were beaten down physically and just before he lead a suicide charge to knock out the pillbox closest to him he made the statement "Gentlemen, we are dying on the beach, it would e better off to charge inland and die inland than here" He took off in front of everyone else and our boys took the first of the deadly pillboxes....my hat is off to that general.

 

We owe so much to those D Day soldiers, so many lost...same with so many other areas of that war, the Pacific islands, every skirmish in every lousy village and field they slogged their way through in whatever country...we owe those young men of old.

 

America, Home of The Free, Because of the Brave

 

tsap seui

Edited June 7, 2013 by tsap seui (see edit history)

[dnoblett]

Who cannot forget the first 20 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan"?

http://youtu.be/bwBkQy9CpS0