67 years

[Tony]

[LewdiKris]

I hadn't forgotten. Thanks for starting thread.

LK

[Riverkilt]

Never Forget.

Living in Navajo country the Code Talkers are revered - the few that are still around. But there were also many Navajos fighting in Europe. The late father of a Navajo friend was a combat engineer and first in on D-Day and up front all the way across Europe clearing obstacles and booby traps. His service under fire was not recognized the way the code talkers finally were. He had disdain for them, said, "They were in the rear."

D-Day was an amazing feat from any perspective.

[Nighthawk]

I'm reading Islands Of The Damned by RV Burgin right now. Thanks for posting that picture. Anyone else have the misfortune of witnessing the History Channels Civil War Week? What a freakin' joke that turned out to be... Except for the Lee and Grant comparisson.

[ohiopiper]

There more I learn of what happened during and immediately after D-Day, the nmore I stand in awe of the men who pulled it off. Not just the planners who imagined and coordinated the largest amphibious landing the world has ever seen, but also the twenty something private who had the balls to step off the landing craft into the surf.

Improbabilities happen in any war. I saw strange things myself. WWII, though, is filled with the oddest things happening at the oddest times. Like the calm that came over Normandy in the middle of a storm. Just in time to let the landing take place, then the storm picked up again.

[Spartan Tartan]

A truly inspirational event.

[Mike_Oettle]

Calls to mind the immortal words of Lord Lovat: “Millin! Black Bear.”
And off they marched to the skirl of the pipes.
Regards,
Mike

[piperdbh]

A year or so ago I saw some WWII and Korean-era US Army uniforms. I had always assumed that the soldiers involved in these wars were big, strong hero-type dudes, like you see in the movies. I'd imagine some of them were, but these uniforms were size 28, 32, and 34 waist pants and size 38 and 40 jackets. That's the size of my ninth-grade boys. The point is, while movies like to glamorize real events, a lot of the servicemen (and women) were still teenagers, called up to do the work of a dozen grown men, each. A lot of them had never been away from home before. My great-uncle was so sheltered that he slept in the same bed with his mother until he shipped off to Basic.
While it was never my privilege to serve, my hat is off to those who did.

[Whidbey78]

I had a good friend who passed away a few years ago. He was a 19 year old farm kid on his first foray into war when he took two rounds at Omaha beach. He also earned a bronze star earlier that day. He was awarded a silver star for actions some months later, and then another purple heart when he was wounded on the western edge of Germany.

He liked the Army and stayed in until he was wounded again in Korea in late '52, this time ending his career. He would stop anyone mid-sentence who tried to refer to him as a hero, and very rarely talked about any of it. Years later, after deploying to my own war, I understood why he was like that.

Back in the summer of '01 he was flown back to France and presented with several awards from France, Belguim and the Netherlands along with 24 others from the US and Canada. Unfortunately, I couldn't make it to his funeral in '05 because I was in Iraq. I was always thankful that despite the unique type of hell we dealt with, and anyone in a combat zone experiences, military men and women will (hopefully) never again have to go through what he had to.

Unfortunately, at the rate WWII vets are dying, many of their experiences will be lost to history.

[sp00ky]

A year or so ago I saw some WWII and Korean-era US Army uniforms. I had always assumed that the soldiers involved in these wars were big, strong hero-type dudes, like you see in the movies. I'd imagine some of them were, but these uniforms were size 28, 32, and 34 waist pants and size 38 and 40 jackets. That's the size of my ninth-grade boys.

True, I was shocked to see that my Grandfather upon enlistment, first to the 2nd/10th Dragoons Canadian Militia in 1936 weighed just 132 lbs, and then when TOS to the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry C.A.S.F. in 1940 was only 143. His medical records, when wounded at Dieppe in 1942 indicate 146.