Posted on 06/07/2014 6:05:23 PM PDT by ClaytonP
My grandpa had a bird’s eye view of the D-Day landings, seventy years ago today. He flew tactical bombing missions, watching the invasion unfold beneath him. Compared to his earliest missions in ’43, it wasn’t that dangerous. The Luftwaffe had already been reduced to hit and run attacks, and couldn’t challenge the US Army Air Force. Somehow, despite a long life enjoying cigars, scotch whiskey, martinis and huge amounts of beef, he’s still alive at 91, but he’s not all there anymore. However, I like to think some of those memories linger in his mind, as they do for an ever shrinking number of WWII veterans.
Forty one years after my grandfather, I visited Normandy’s beaches with my family as a ten-year-old boy. We lived in Brittany at the time, which borders Normandy, so it wasn’t all that far from our place. In fact, some of the fiercest fighting took place in Brittany, particularly around St. Malo. Evidence of warfare was still very common in France at the time. Many of the building still showed bomb damage, and occasionally one would run across discarded equipment. As a boy, I was fascinated by the bunkers, spent shells and rockets and crater-pocked landscape. The beaches and countryside were a sober monument in themselves; looking out over the vast fields of graves in Normandy gives one a sense of the reality of the sacrifice. It also filled me with a feeling of pride for my country and the brave men in my family, some of whom never came home, who fought in the war,
I won’t get into the horror of what happened there, because it’s easy enough to imagine it oneself after seeing the broken concrete, craters, twisted metal and sheer cliffs. But I would like to ask, given what the US has become today, whether those volunteer veterans, like my grandfather, would have chosen to make that sacrifice. I don’t think so. There’s no way FDR could have sold that war with feminism and multiculturalism. My grandfather told me he fought against tyranny, and the naked aggression displayed by Tojo and Hitler. It wasn’t so that his great grandchildren could grow up to be despised minorities in the country of their birth. It definitely wasn’t so that his male descendants would be subordinated to some feminist imperative. If this had been the goal of the US war effort, American men would have put down their guns and walked away from it.
Given what the US has become after emerging from WWII as the sole superpower, it’s fair at this point to ask whether the young American men who made the ultimate sacrifice weren’t cheated, used and betrayed. It’s also fair to ask whether they should have even fought the war in the first place. If it means accepting some version of Michael Kimmel’s ideal society, I’d have to say it was all a big mistake. Now, I look back at my youthful pride with a feeling of sadness.
What a damn shame…
It wasn’t a waste. Saying so ignores both history and the likelihood that Europe would have eventually been overrun entirely by the Soviet Union.
I mean if you’re ok with the Iron Curtain starting on the coast of France, that’s on you....
The American people re choosing the path they take...and that fight is not over yet...no where near.
To ask if it was worth it? To somehow say that because we have a minority of people getting elected and foisting feminism and other garbage on us makes it somehow not worth it?
Get real.
Imagine if Hitler and Tojo had won. Imagine the state of our society and what we would have to be fighting instead of a bunch of girly men and PC.
Oh...it was worth it, and the difference and comparison is not even close.
I am sure we would have won no matter where we attacked.
Maybe invading through the Dardanelles would have worked, or Greece etc. I know Northern Italy turned out to be a pretty tough place for attacks.
Probably Normandy was the right place but who really knows.
Since Hitler was an avowed leftist, abortionist, homosexualist, environmentalist, unionist, racist and atheist, the world would little differ from that of the obama/holder cabal. The Nazis were a thoroughly Socialist party just as are the DemonRATS. And like Hitler, obama favors anti-business policies. The only difference between a Hitler world and one with the current regime in power is that the suffering we experience now would have come several decades sooner.
But I have great hope because it won't be much longer before President Sarah Palin is sworn in and restores the Biblical principles upon which America was built. I'm counting the weeks until Inauguration Day of 2017!
Maybe the old veteran had a bird’s eye view at the time. His grandson has a snail’s eye view of history.
The Soviets might have controlled all of Europe
God bless your Dad. He must have been in the Third Army with Gen. Patton.
It was worth it, it is the last century’s benchmark for freedom, bravery and and the strength of allies.
I firmly believe that the Supreme Commander was God Himself.
We thank all who served then and serve now.
You’re here.
Wow. Where to start?
I always remember Churchill’s speech that day to the House of Commons when he proclaimed “Everything is proceeding according to plan.....And what a plan!”
Can you imagine anyone even 10-20 years ago asking this question?
besides far leftists who think we were the bad guys?
Remember the Smithsonian Museum had an exhibit about the terrible nuking of Japan by us meanies.
The Lefties only criticism of D-Day was that we didn’t do it sooner, to help out their hero, Uncle Joe.
Well, it gave us another 64 years before socialists conquered the USA.
“But I have great hope...”
Yes, as do I. Whether it be Sarah or some other. We are on the verge of RWII. Not civil, but revolutionary. We must be resolute. We must Stand our Ground. We must prevail.
What the hell is the point? Did only D day lead to what is going on
here and now? What is now is the sum total of what happened before,
during, and after D day. Humans make stupid choices and what
soldiers did on D day has no more cause and effect relationship with
today than anything that happened June 6, 1946.
Why do anything? Everything will just turn to sh!t sooner or later
anyway.............
I hope someone at the Smithsonian has the integrity to read “Unbroken” by the author of Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand.
It is about the airway over the Pacific, and the torture of our boys in the Japanese POW camps. After reading it, I am convinced that Truman made the right decision.
Read the book, for you won’t be able to put it down, and check the statistics at the end. So many lives were saved by that awful bomb. I now hold the Japanese in much lower regard when reading about their inhumane behavior during the war.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1400064163/?tag=mh0b-20&hvadid=4162189905&ref=pd_sl_1ud5kb5y1t_ee
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