D-Day Remembrance

[Mitch f]

Never forget their sacrifice. They weren’t wimps, they were grateful to be Americans. 

[jdmidwest]

20 minutes ago, Mitch f said:

Never forget their sacrifice. They weren’t wimps, they were grateful to be Americans. 

Not only Grateful, but willing to give their lives for it.  Back then, it was a much better country to fight for....

[Mitch f]

17 minutes ago, jdmidwest said:

Not only Grateful, but willing to give their lives for it.  Back then, it was a much better country to fight for....

Many of the WW2 veterans that are still alive lied about their age when they joined. Doubt you would find that now. 

[DADAKOTA]

My Uncle Bill stacked cardboard in his shoes so he'd be tall enough to enlist.

[Terrierman]

I made myself watch "Saving Private Ryan" yesterday.  And the full series of "Band of Brothers" last week.  Anyone who doesn't fully appreciate the sacrifice and hardships conquering Germany involved needs their head examined. 

My mother was in the first graduating class of enlisted WAVES in WWII.  My dad flew on B-24's with the Army Air Force.  My mother's brother was a USN Corpsman in the South Pacific.  My uncle by marriage was in the USMC, in North Africa among other places.  A family tradition that was the norm in those times.

IMHO, it's a crying shame that our country now has very few veterans in positions of leadership.  And the vast majority of the population of the U.S. doesn't even know an active duty service member.  Disrespect for veterans coming from the highest levels too.  It all comes from no skin in the game.  

"Thank you for your service" are now mostly empty rote words that are intended to make the speaker feel better, not so much the person hearing them.

Rant over. 

[Ryan Miloshewski]

My great grandpa, John Roche, was part of Patton's 3rd Army that broke through and relieved the guys at Bastogne. Have his flag in a case. The nads on those guys on D-Day and pretty much any theater in WWII is something I'll never even come close to. 

Introducing Band of Brothers to my buddy today after work.

[ness]

A friend of mine had an uncle killed in Normandy on a bombing run a few months before D-Day. The pilot steered away from a schoolhouse before crashing, saving the lives of many on the ground, including kids in the school. In February he and his family, and many of the other relatives of the soldiers killed in that crash, were invited to a ceremony honoring those men. Many of the school children were in attendance at the ceremony. My buddy had his uncle's flag and they raised it over the American Cemetery that day. They were able to visit his grave there. He said is was incredible how the French people are so thankful, still, for what was done 80 years ago. 

Another friend of mine visited Amsterdam a few years back, and there was an annual ceremony in which the expressed thanks to the Allied forces who freed them.

We were on a vacation a few years back and met a couple from the Netherlands. They too expressed great thanks to America for what we did, but she had an interesting add on: She said something to the effect of, 'You do realize it destroyed our country in the process, right?' She was thankful, but was pointing out how hard it was on them, knowing that was a different perspective than what someone from the US would have. 

My uncle Lt. Mansor J. Mansor was killed at Futa Pass, Italy in 1944. Two of my dad's cousins were pilots in WWII. One trained pilots stateside, the other flew reconnaissance in a P-38 in Europe. My dad was a doc in a MASH unit in Korea. GGGGgrandfather fought with the Lancaster PA militia in the Revolutionary War. 

I didn't do squat  

 

[ness]

Some may find this interesting. 
 

[Quillback]

My grandfather on my mother's side was in a tracked artillery unit in France and Germany in WWII.  He died when I was 12 and one of my life's big regrets is not being able to talk to him and my other relatives that were in WWII as an adult.  

Anyway, my mom tells me that when grandads unit rolled into Germany they came across a concentration camp, said they could smell it for miles before they got there.  The people in the camp were walking skeletons and they couldn't give the any food as they medical folks warned them that they could kill them by giving them too much food.  The guys in his unit were not too sympathetic to any Germans after seeing that concentration camp.

Papa and his buddies looted a castle while they were in Germany, he had a duffle bag of antique silverware, when it was time to come back to the States they were told if they were caught with any looted stuff they'd be in big trouble, so he left it all there.  Says they did not search any of his stuff when they got on the boat, he could've gotten away with it.  😀

I did have a pair of German binoculars he brought back.  I'm getting old so I passed them down to one of my younger cousins.

Speaking of souvenir's, my Washington state bird hunting buddy had a luger that his father in law gave him.  The FIL was in WWII and somehow obtained the pistol.  I don't know the story behind it.  The magazine had a couple of original bullets in it.  They were green with age.  

Had a great uncle that flew a P-51, two other great uncles that were in the infantry in Europe.  One of them was taken prisoner in the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans beat him up pretty badly, and to top it off he got frost bite.  He got what today we'd call PTSD and was never right when he came back.  

Had a distant relative that was a Union soldier and was captured in Tennessee.  He was sent to Andersonville, a notoriously bad POW camp.  The story goes that while there he got sick and looked to be dead so they threw him on the death cart to haul him off for burial - but someone saw him wiggle a toe, they took him off the cart and he regained his health and survived the war.  That's the story, who knows how accurate.  

War is miserable, I'm fortunate that no wars occurred when I was in the Army.  

 

[ness]

2 hours ago, Quillback said:

My grandfather on my mother's side was in a tracked artillery unit in France and Germany in WWII.  He died when I was 12 and one of my life's big regrets is not being able to talk to him and my other relatives that were in WWII as an adult.  

Anyway, my mom tells me that when grandads unit rolled into Germany they came across a concentration camp, said they could smell it for miles before they got there.  The people in the camp were walking skeletons and they couldn't give the any food as they medical folks warned them that they could kill them by giving them too much food.  The guys in his unit were not too sympathetic to any Germans after seeing that concentration camp.

Papa and his buddies looted a castle while they were in Germany, he had a duffle bag of antique silverware, when it was time to come back to the States they were told if they were caught with any looted stuff they'd be in big trouble, so he left it all there.  Says they did not search any of his stuff when they got on the boat, he could've gotten away with it.  😀

I did have a pair of German binoculars he brought back.  I'm getting old so I passed them down to one of my younger cousins.

Speaking of souvenir's, my Washington state bird hunting buddy had a luger that his father in law gave him.  The FIL was in WWII and somehow obtained the pistol.  I don't know the story behind it.  The magazine had a couple of original bullets in it.  They were green with age.  

Had a great uncle that flew a P-51, two other great uncles that were in the infantry in Europe.  One of them was taken prisoner in the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans beat him up pretty badly, and to top it off he got frost bite.  He got what today we'd call PTSD and was never right when he came back.  

Had a distant relative that was a Union soldier and was captured in Tennessee.  He was sent to Andersonville, a notoriously bad POW camp.  The story goes that while there he got sick and looked to be dead so they threw him on the death cart to haul him off for burial - but someone saw him wiggle a toe, they took him off the cart and he regained his health and survived the war.  That's the story, who knows how accurate.  

War is miserable, I'm fortunate that no wars occurred when I was in the Army.  

 

You always hear that these veterans never talked about it, and that was true with my dad. A few years before he died I made up a list of questions, sat him in front of a camcorder and got a ton of information about his whole life, including his service. I only wish I’d done it sooner and had devoted many more hours to it, but I’m grateful for what I have. 

I need to get that digitized, and also write a transcript of it. On the list of things to do when I retire is that, and pull together all the genealogy information together into a usable format for my kids and everyone else.  

I do have his cap, captain’s bars, pants and jacket from Korea. They have dates on the tags and were WWII era.