Posted on 08/15/2011 7:04:02 AM PDT by ccj85
American D-Day veterans are crying foul over a French initiative, approved last month by President Nicolas Sarkozy, to construct over one-hundred 525-feet wind turbines just off the Normandy landing grounds.
According to Gérard Lecornu, president of the Port Winston Churchill Association of Arromanches, the giant structures, expected to be built seven miles from the beach, will be visible from the Normandy battleground beaches of Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.
“Three million tourists come from the world over to the landing beaches. The first thing they do is look at the line of horizon from where the landings came,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “D-Day is in our collective memory. To touch this is a very grave attack on that memory.”
American veterans are weighing in with opposition and dismay. Bob Sales, the only survivor from his landing craft on D-Day, and Omaha beach veteran Bob Slaughter told The Daily Caller that the beaches are “sacred ground” and expressed their strong opposition to the building of the turbines.
Hal Baumgarten, who was wounded five times on Omaha beach, added that he considers the beaches to be a “shrine” to those who died and said that constructing windmills off the coast would be a “desecration.”
“I landed with the first wave on Omaha beach,” said Baumgarten. “Of course it is hallowed ground. I have been going back for the last 15 years straight — except I missed last year and this year … When I look at it I see all the bodies — we lost a lot of people on D-Day, especially on my beach where we couldn’t get any reinforcements.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thedc.com ...
“...You must have been proud of your dad...”
He was, and remains, my greatest hero.
In his short, troubled life, he lived a lifetime...and loved his God, his country, and his family.
Not a day goes by that I don’t miss him and Mom.
My dad was a WW2 Navy Corpman, and fought at Peleleu, and Okanawa.
3 Purple Hearts trying to save members of the 5th Marine division.
The finest man I have ever known.
Thanks for the tears : )
My Dad’s oldest brother was greivously wounded on Okinawa. Survived 7 amphib landings and almost bought it there.
Dad’s baby brother MET up with Oldest brother there, two different divisions, before he was wounded. Dad was in Europe fighting the National Socialists, the brothers were in the Pacific stopping the march of Dai Nippon and shoving their “Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere” up their Nipponese arses.
Grandma had three stars in the window; two of them were almost Gold stars.
Every generation gets it’s chance to protect and preserve what the last generation fought and bled for.
My father taught me something before he died - what he called the three virtues of an American Man: “Duty, Honor, Courage”. His entire generation understood those virtues, and lived them.
We need to face the fact that this is probably OUR turn, and we need to be as firm and dedicated to purpose, and grimly determined to hang on to what our Dads fought to preserve.
“Do NOT go Gently...”
Our Fathers didn’t. They heard the bugle, they answered it, because they understood “Duty, Honor, Courage”. They didn’t want to, they’d have much rather stayed at home, chasing skirt, chasing a couple cold beers with the boys at the “Taproom”, and just living their lives, but they went anyway.
They were everything I aspired to be, all my life. And they are THE picture of what it means to be Americans.
You know the rest, brother.
God bless.
i started to leave ya outta da ping, knowin it would set yer teeth a bit on edge, but Im glad i did, cause you summed it up nicely...
as a blanket statement, its a bit harsh, as there were many a valiant frenchie soldier, and they bled white a generation before, but from then to now, theve been pretty much condescending eurotrash towards US and our FReedom...not to mention, as you said, benefitting from our willingness to secure their borders at much cost of our treasure...
I believe Hale Sr smiles everytime you rant on about his and his brothers-in-arms sacrifices for ours, and the worlds, FReedom...
as for things human, i aspire to be the kind of father that you guys see in yours...
your statements about those men literally speak volumes to me...
“...3 Purple Hearts trying to save members of the 5th Marine division...”
And you know what? He did it because they were his buddies, because it was the right thing to do, and he was a brave man. He just WENT out there for them, and brought them back.
The finest men, indeed. Our fathers were giants walking amongst us, and we didn’t even know it. THEY didn’t even know it, either, which is the reason they were amazing folks.
We are diminished greatly as a People and as a Nation as they leave us.
And as this National Tragedy we have currently running the country unfolds, I can’t help but wonder what they think about it, and about US for letting it happen.
I’m kinda torn on this one. While I abhor the left’s ecorabidliberal reasons for wanting to implement wind-power at the expense of other still-viable technology, I believe that the quiet utility of a functional system that is ‘useful’ to the area wouldn’t be taken as an insults by the American dead buried there.
I've often wished I could have been there, in that time, with those American men. Always felt like I was born in the wrong part of the century.
Those Frenchies that did fight, interestingly enough, were Les Legion Etranger du Francaise - the French Foreign Legionnaires. They were nuts, and they fought like tigers.
Can't say the same for the poilus, though. They just rolled over and got rolled.
” Our Fathers didn’t. They heard the bugle, they answered it, because they understood “Duty, Honor, Courage”. They didn’t want to, they’d have much rather stayed at home, chasing skirt, chasing a couple cold beers with the boys at the “Taproom”, and just living their lives, but they went anyway.
They were everything I aspired to be, all my life. And they are THE picture of what it means to be Americans.”
Exactly!!
This thread exemplifies why I always post to you guys.
It is called class.
I'm going to guess that the coast of France has a much higher AVERAGE wind speed than the coast of Texas. So does my state, Washington. There's this thing about wind off the Atlantic and Pacific. Virtually all the time at this latitude.
There aren’t many people of our ages or close to it that weren’t touched in some way by that war.
I just kinda think we owe those guys to see to it that we aren’t the generation that turns out the lights and shuts the power down on the “American Experiment”.
By any means necessary.
” I just kinda think we owe those guys to see to it that we aren’t the generation that turns out the lights and shuts the power down on the “American Experiment”.
By any means necessary. “
Whatever it takes.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.