D-Day 60 years on

[matriarch]

I know I'm probably setting myself up as a target for some cynical and scathing people out there, but...........

I am watching the TV transmission of the commemoration services from Normandy. I've been sitting here quietly crying, watching these old men and women, with tears in their eyes, so emotional they cannot even talk about what they experienced; so overcome at the memory of the loss of their friends and fellow soldiers as they walk around the cemetery in Bayeux. I have so much to do, but I just cannot drag myself away from the tv. I HAVE to watch, and feel and remember. Everyone should be watching, remembering.

I have watched President Bush pay his tribute to the American forces at the Omagh cemetery, I have heard the Queen paying tribute to the Canadian losses at their cemetery, I have watched these incredibly proud and upright veterans march into the British cemetery at Bayeux, shoulders and heads high, being applauded by their friends and families who have accompanied them on this painful journey.

I have been watching programmes all week, memories of those ones that survived, cried with them, as they break down in mid sentence, the memory of their comrades wiping out their ability to talk.

As I prepare to watch the service, I do not expect to come through it untouched. If they sing Abide With Me, I am certain I will crumple.

My apologies for such a....sad note ..but I just had to share.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/whatson/search/advance_search.cgi?keyword=D-day


Matriarch




"For our tomorrow, they gave their today."

 

[oggbashan]

I don't think you are setting yourself up as a target.

Those men who landed on D-Day DID set themselves up as a target and many paid the ultimate price.

It could have been a disaster if the Germans had not been misled by the deception that the Pas-de-Calais would be the invasion site and that Normandy was a diversion. Eisenhower had drafted a letter apologising for the failure and accepting blame for the disaster. He didn't have to use that letter.

The casualties on D-Day, although high, were less than the planners expected. During the weeks after D-Day many more Allied troops died than on the day itself.

Most of the young men who landed on the beaches were not professional soldiers. They were ordinary guys doing an extraordinary task as best they could. The ones who died, the ones who were wounded, and those that survived deserve our thanks for giving us the freedoms we now have.

We will remember them, today and forever.

Og

 

[dr_mabeuse]

As they say, it was the last 'good' war, where good met evil and the good was truly on the allies' side. And as Og said, these were not professional soldiers out for guts & glory. These were guys off the streets and farms who had a terrible job to do and sucked it up and did it and paid a horrible price.

The loss of life was tragic, and the loss of that generation now is tragic as well. I doubt we'll ever see that kind of heroism on that scale again.

---dr.M.

 

[rgraham666]

I never forget the price other people paid so I could live free.

 

[Guest]

Lest we forget...

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is a music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncountered:
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables at home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end they remain.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,
We will remember them.

~ Laurence Binyon

 

[cloudy]

That's beautiful, Lou. I hadn't seen that one.

Thanks.

 

[oggbashan]

The last verse of Laurence Binyon's poem above is said at the beginning and end of every British Legion meeting including the opening and closing of the bar.

Much more meaningful than 'Time Gentlemen please!'

My scout troop used to say it at the end of every scout evening.

Og

 

[oggbashan]

While we remember D-Day it needs to be said that many others were fighting at the same time.

In Italy the 'D-Day dodgers' were fighting their way North and had just taken Rome.

In the East, the Russians had been in direct contact with the Germans since 1941. By D-Day the Russians were pushing the Germans back.

The Resistance movements in Europe were harassing German communications and made a supreme effort at the time of D-Day.

These three things stopped the Germans from applying the strength they had available until it was too late and the beachhead was established.

And in the Pacific Theatre the fighting was continuing against the Japanese.

The D-Day heroes were not alone. That does not diminsh their achievement.

Og

 

[Guest]

Matriarch -

Beautiful sentiments.

Thank you for this thread; it's so difficult to live in the U.S. at this time and remain positive.

My dad-in-law is a WW II Army veteran (he was just 19). He was wounded in the Ruhr Valley and lost most of his left foot.

He is finally beginning to speak of his experiences. The opening of the WW II Memorial in Washington, D.C. (and TV coverage of the event) has had something to do with that, I think.

My father is a Vietnam vet. He retired from the Air Force after 22 years. He, however, hasn't shared much of his time in Vietnam with his family.

I am so proud of these men and everyone like them. Incredibly, emotionally, watery-eyes proud.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

And in the Pacific Theatre the fighting was continuing against the Japanese.

The D-Day heroes were not alone. That does not diminsh their achievement.

Og

Thank you Og. My grandfather was one of the souls island hopping in the Pacific. He still gets nightmares about it, the combat was so fierce. Basically every combat was a mini-D-day. I owe him literally my existence as well as the other brave soldiers on the other fronts.

I also was personally insulted when Bush made his speech. Someone who is stiffing my grandpa the money for medication while paying that kind of free lip service is an asshole, completely and utterly.

Anyway, that's how I felt. I'm sorry for the small bit of vitriol, but as I'm related to "one of the last living heroes" I took memorial day seriously and him photo op-ing his way through was painful. Sorry again.

"Honor unto our veterans for without them, we would not stand here today."

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Every man among them was a hero. Not, perhaps in the sense of being awarded medals or a ticker tape parade, but they were all quiet heros. For boarding those ships, and going to confront the enemy, with the all to real possibility of never coming back.

For the sake of people they did not know, and people not yet born, they risked the most valuable thing they had, their lives. That is heroism of the most admirable kind and courage on the most personal level.

Where might we all be today, if they had not faced up to that daunting prospect and persevered?

-Colly

 

[oggbashan]

D-Day 60 years on is nearly over. By this time 60 years ago many men had died but they had their foothold In France.

Those who were still fighting didn't know they would be fighting for another year. The survivors we are honouring today survived D-Day and the fighting through Europe to the final defeat of Germany. For them today was one long day with many more long days to come.

Those who survived the war in Europe were being prepared to transfer to join their friends fighting in the Pacific. If they had, how many would be left now?

Today was one day. They fought on and on for days, weeks, and months to give us liberty. It was not easily won.

Og

 

[Guest]

Warning: Cynicism below. Still, some truths ring true in this film critic's piece. - Perdita
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WAR IN DIFFERENT WORLDS- Mick LaSalle, SF Chron., June 6, 2004

The other day I took a long walk while listening to an MP3 disc of old World War II news broadcasts. For those who don't know MP3 discs, I'll immediately digress to say that they look like CDs but can store something like 60 or 70 hours of material. They're amazingly cheap, too. The disc I was listening to, which also included many hours of Winston Churchill's aural memoirs and speeches, cost $4.

But to get back to my walk. That day I heard a broadcast and an analysis from 60 years ago Monday, June 7, 1944, evaluating the progress of the D-Day invasion. The commentator made predictions. In the new order soon to come, the United States would emerge as the most powerful nation by far, its moral authority and its economic and military strength unrivaled. Though a terrible day, the Allied invasion of Normandy saw the dawning of a hopeful age.

Today we approach the 60th anniversary of D-Day in a spirit somewhat different from even a few years ago, when a glut of World War II movies filled local screens. I ascribed that glut, in August 2001, to the placid nature of our own era: "For the time being, filmmakers, like the general public, are past the fear that something worse might come about tomorrow." Those days are gone. Then, as now, World War II remains the grimmest event in human history. But how long it can maintain that distinction is an open question.

All that insipid "Greatest Generation" sentimentality is over. Sure, those people had their problems. But we have ours, too. At the same time, I think we have a better understanding of the psychology of the World War II era, much more than we did circa 2000, when we were making a grand show of thanking Gramps for his heroism.

On that same walk I mentioned earlier, I heard a classical music program that was interrupted by confused bulletins out of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Three years ago, I might have found such a broadcast vicariously thrilling. Now it just filled me with sympathy and dread. It would be four long years before the original listeners would really be able to return to that classical broadcast. And many would never return.

When people go to war, they bring their culture with them. And so in World War II it wasn't only the GIs who went overseas. In a way, it was also Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman and the Andrews Sisters; Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour; Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth and Ann Sheridan; Humphrey Bogart, Robert Taylor and Jimmy Cagney; and also Gershwin, Copland, Hemingway and Mark Twain. The culture embodied much that was vital and at stake. In England, Churchill's exhortations to the nation were sprinkled with references to British life, as in his great Battle of Britain speech, in which he said that defeat would mean "the end of all that we have known and cared for." Governments send soldiers to fight, but the soldiers end up fighting for something at once bigger and smaller than governments: the worlds they know.

Alas, what a difference between the world that Americans brought with them into World War II and that which today's soldiers are bringing with them to Iraq. Today's culture is in large measure one of action movies and violent video games, noxious music and inane, lewd television. It's one that glorifies prurience and cruelty. We can look at the pictures coming out of Abu Ghraib and be shocked. But, as with the Columbine massacre, the thing that's most shocking is that it isn't really shocking at all. On the contrary, it makes sense. We know those people. We recognize their dead eyes and smug, grinning faces. They are the idiots next door.

I see lots of movies, a lot more than any normal person, and it's possible that my reactions are somewhat skewed. Still, I doubt one really has to be a movie critic to hear echoes of Stallone, Schwarzenegger and a host of lesser action stars in Spc. Charles Graner's pithy epigram: "The Christian in me says it's wrong, but the corrections officer in me says, 'I love to make a grown man p -- himself.' "

Such self-delusion is enough to tie one up in knots just thinking of it. Here's a man who not only thinks himself some kind of Christian and some kind of officer, but also thinks he's an antihero. He thinks he's the protagonist struggling with himself, as if a halfhearted pretense to morality could justify complacent bestiality. The vigilante cadence is unmistakable. Behind that comment are a thousand well-turned movie lines, from James Bond to Vin Diesel. It's a wonder Graner didn't say it was a dirty job but someone had to do it.

Of course, the Nazis' barbarism was infinitely worse, but it's curious that they justified their brutality by linking it to Nordic myth and Wagner's music. What do our homegrown sadists have? Just bad pop culture and pornographic impulses. According to Reuters, Spc. Sabrina Harman attached electrodes to an Iraqi prisoner she called "Gilligan." Why Gilligan? "Just playing with him," she said. It's enough to make one wonder if the future will belong to the stupid. The answer: Of course it can't, because if it does, there won't be any future.

The more sober question is: How do we turn this around and rebuild from the rubble a kind of national inner life that values humanity, intelligence and mutual respect? It can't come from movies. Popular culture responds to and reflects national leadership, but only if there's leadership there. Meanwhile, the right wing spouts morality as it preaches a doctrine of utter self- interest. And the left makes feints in the direction of fellow feeling, but its doctrine is self-indulgence. Both sides have gotten us here. Neither side knows the way out.

It's awesome to contemplate. Sixty years ago, the people of D-Day had to know that generations later we'd admire, respect and be thankful for them. Yet in their wildest dreams they could hardly have imagined we'd envy them.

 

[oggbashan]

D-Day + 1

60 years ago, the day after D-Day, soldiers were still dying for freedom in Normandy, in Italy and in the Pacific.

Merchant seamen and their naval escorts were being sunk and men killed by submarines and bombers.

V1s were killing civilians in SE England. The RAF and the US Air Forces were bombing civilians all over Europe.

From D-Day, the soldiers in Normandy still had a long way to go. In Italy they would be fighting and dying as they slowly advanced. In the Pacific, island-hopping was a very bloody and desparate business and there were more naval battles to come.

China and Russian troops were dying in massive numbers as allies of the US, UK and others.

In the forgotten theatre of Burma, troops from India were gradually wearing down the Japanese.

In all these theatres of war, mothers were losing their sons, and the sons that came back would never be the same.

We should not just remember them on the formal anniversaries, but every time we do something that but for them we could not do - like vote, discuss politics, attend a church, choose where to live, what to wear, what to eat. Almost everything we do in the Western World we can only do because of the freedoms won back and protected by WWII.

Og