In Gratitude and Respect
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18 Comments!
To have been an 18- or 19-year-old kid, sea-sick in a pitching landing craft with a rifle in your hands and a 60-pound pack on your back. And then the landing ramp drops and you run – run – into certain death while your buddies drop all around you. Or to be a 22- or 23-year-old platoon commander fresh out of West Point or OCS and watch most of your platoon get wiped out on the beach. Most of the survivors of this operation are gone now with those left pushing 90. Still can’t thank them enough – I tear up just thinking about it.
Roger that Thunderbottom.
I still don’t know how they could run without tripping over their nutsack.
And————-the heartwarming gratitude of the Fwench has never diminished?
Just got finished watching Band of Brothers…
(metaphorical hat off, held over heart)
…I have no idea how any of them did it.
That was THE moment in the history of this world and our nation. I have all the pics of the cemeteries that I look at every so often. Every cross I see overwhelms me in the wonderment of what each and every one of them had done for this nation and the world.
Forever Grateful with Thanksgiving.
Reagan spoke of this.
There’s a reason that there’s not much film footage from Omaha beach on D-day as compared to, say, Sword or Gold – people had better things to do, like trying to stay alive.
Most of the American troops in the D-Day landings were seeing combat for the first time. Valor, good training and a sense of rightousness won the day for the allies.
The proud legacy of our WWII troops has been carried on by following generations of American warriors in battles around the world. In spite of the fact that politicians have not had the guts to allow us to win a total victory since WWII, our troops have endured and perservered and paid the price.
#3, Col. Jerry: A while back, I read the memoirs of a paratrooper who participated in the D-Day drop and in Operation Market-Garden. He said that, compared to the French, the Dutch were genuinely grateful at what the Allies, particularly the American and British paratroopers, had done to liberate the Netherlands. He wrote that he always enjoyed going back to the Netherlands for unit reunions; the Dutch were gracious and generous hosts. The French, on the other hand, acted like the paratroopers were vagabond trespassers and, for the most part, displayed little to no gratitude (that’s not to say that all the French were like that; I’ve read that, on the whole, the natives of Normandy are much friendlier and warmer to Americans than Parisians and inhabitants in the rest of France.)
^ Thunderbottom,
The French are still sore that the first army the US fought in WWII was the French Army when the US landed in North Africa.
Google strikes out again. Their Logo of the Day is “79th Anniversary of the first drive-in theater”.
mojo: The photographs we see from the landing, by Robert Capa, are the closest thing to being there:
The Magnificent Eleven: The D-Day Photographs of Robert Capa
Second best to being there is the opening part of “Saving Private Ryan”.
He was one of the first embedded journalists. He went on the beach with the 1st Infantry Division. He took 106 photos (35mm film camera). Back at base, the guy developing the film dried the film too quickly, too hot – most all of it melted. All but 10. You can find most of them at
Capa Photos (mixed in with a lot of his others).
All gave some. Some gave all.
In TUA’s pic, there is a guy just off the left center of the landing craft ramp, looking over his left shoulder. That’s Bill X, a fellow I used to shoot with. He joked about changing his mind and getting back on the boat.
I would not blame him. Can’t imagine staring at those bluffs all lit up with muzzle flashes across hundreds of yards of flat, open beach and still having the courage to move forward.
Vos Salutamus
Thanks for reminding me. I can’t believe I almost forgot. I should be takend-out and beat with sticks. My father was in that battle. He came out with a Silver Star, and two Purple Hearts (one from Bastogne later-on from account of artillery).
Me? At 17 I tried to volunteer for Viet Nam ’cause I wanted to go kill me some gooks! but they (the Army) wouldn’t take me because I was still too ‘rough’. I guess my up-bringing through orphanages and reform school put them off a little. A year later they would have taken me, but by that time I’d changed my mind.
So I became a bank-robber instead.
Hog: Well, heck – just so’s your talents didn’t go to waste.
Thanks for posting Reagan’s speech, Doug.
Europe is still basically free but nearly all the drive ins are gone.
google chose poorly.
mech: “Europe is still basically free but ” … this new-fangled EU thing is working to fix that.
Meanwhile, Dear Leader SCOAMF’s D-day tribute was just….remarkable.
^^^ Thank God, he didn`t open his fucking eating hole——and embarrass us!^^^