Remembering D Day

Thanks for reminding everyone, CBG.

Yogi Berra was among those there:

http://bronxpinstripes.com/yankees-history/berra-takes-part-in-dday/

 

Sorry for not seeing this earlier. Done. This will stay here for a few days.

 

We definitely owe our vets a debt of gratitude! We owe it to them to not make their sacrifices in vain. We owe it to them to have a properly-functioning, efficient Veteran's Administration that takes care of their medical and psychological needs, not one that denies the truth about their claims, and who is so grossly inefficient, that many have to wait months and months (if not years) for treatment. We also owe it to them to take care of them and their families and not make them live in substandard housing, have to get food stamps or welfare to survive.

 

Most of them lived through a horrible depression and volunteered after Pearl Harbor. The able bodied men went off to war, the women manned the factories that outproduced the Germans and Japanese into the dustbin of history. By the end of the war the US was supplying most of the tanks and aircraft to our allies including the Russians.

I was just in NYC visiting my 98 year old dad. He volunteered right after Pearl Harbor. They sent him to MIT and Harvard to learn Sonar and train on a new class of Submarines that we're being put into service in the Pacific. After he returned he was able to get a Law degree from Columbia because of the GI bill and go on to have a very productive and successful life.

He never talked about his service until recently. It was almost a taboo subject in our house growing up. I suspect most of those who served in combat had some form of PSTD.

They were victims of history but they weren't victimized by it. They re-shaped a better future for all of us.

 

Yes, that why I agree with Tom Brokaw. They were the greatest generation, simply amazing. They were builders. They endured the Great Depression and WWII and never complained, felt sorry for themselves, or chose victimhood. They built our country's infrastructure. They made us a great place to live, the envy of the world.

My own father will be 98 in December. He served in the Army Air Corps in N. Africa, India, Burma and China.

 

Thank you to the allied forces who stormed the beaches at Normandy.

Those living and those passed.

We should all never forget you.

 

A cousin of my wife's attending CCNY when the war started, volunteered for pilot training but washed out because he had poor depth perception. He wanted to fly so they sent him to radio school. He flew 38 missions in a B-17. A few days before D-Day, he was transferred to fighter squadrons operating in northern France and Germany as a radio technician until the war ended. He was a very bright man, after the war he took the test to Cooper Union and passed for both engineering and art. During his first semester, he realized he could no longer concentrate on studies and had to drop out. He ended up having a stress free career in the Post Office until he retired about 25 years ago. I don't know whether you can say he was a victim or victimized, but the war definitely took a toll on him. Nevertheless, he is not bitter about the way things turned out. He was happily married and raised a family in Queens. He is still living.

 

My dad served USAA in the CBI too.

 

Amazing individuals....

 

My dad was my hero. They are our greatest generation. Dad made the march to Bastogne under General Patton. Frost bitten feet peeled the rest of his life. He only talked about it to me twice in his life. The first night I came home from college we each sat with a bottle and talked. The last was in the year before his death. He told me "I can still see their eyes" so clearly the got into hand to hand combat. They never used it as an excuse or bitched about it. They sucked it up and got on with life. I am not saying people who go thru war don't deserve help, of course they do. I just hate todays people taking no responsibility in life for their own actions in everyday life. It is always somebody else's fault. Sorry for the rant.

 

77 years ago today.
27 years ago today I had the privilege of taking part in the 50th anniversary celebration of the coast of Normandy on board Uss George Washington cvn 73. I still get chills picturing the coastline trying to imagine what those men were feeling on the way to the beach.

 

AMEN to everything you just said @CBG Great thread idea, dude.

 

The world cannot thank those brave souls storming the beaches of Normandy or dropping from the sky in the dead of night behind enemy lines enough...

 

worked for VA from 1989-2008

respect to vets

 

Yes, thank you D Day participants.

We can never repay their sacrifice.

Remembering them and what they achieved is our responsibility.

 

It's hard to tell from the grainy video images but so many of the 'men' who stormed the beaches were just babies really, young kids...17-18-19 yrs old. My grandfather (a very large man and probably a very large kid) ended up in Germany at 16 yrs old firing an anti aircraft gun. He ran the gun for over a week before someone figured out he was basically blind! They got him glasses and he said when he looked up it was like "wow!!!! I can actually see the enemy planes!!!" Before that he just fired at the sound up in the sky.

Just to compare age wise, these kids we just drafted at 21/22 yrs old would have already had 3 long years in the war, 1/2 Earth from home, surviving in a muddy cold fox hole eating tins of Fish and Creamed Spinach! Truly a blessing our young Americans, away from their very first girlfriends and their moms many for the first time, gave their lives for us.

God bless America

 

Hope he didn't hit any of our planes.