This is the anniversary of the D-Day Normandy invasion which freed Western Europe from the Nazi scourge. We should pay tribute to those who risked and gave their lives so that others might be free. The US, Canada, Great Britain and throughout the Commonwealth gave their blood and treasure to defeat the Nazis.
One such was my mother's brother, Howard Lewis Winkler, Technical SGT, who landed in Normandy and fought all the way to Germany. He died in 2000, may he rest in peace, but he exemplified the type of common farm boy who left Jackson County, Indiana to help win that war.
Provost
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States 1924-1929
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Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!
You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have
striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The
hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.
In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on
other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war
machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of
Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well
equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely.
But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of
1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats,
in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their
strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home
Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions
of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men.
The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to
Victory!
I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in
battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!
Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great
and noble undertaking.
SIGNED: Dwight D. Eisenhower
Provost
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States 1924-1929
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When I posted Ike’s D-Day message yesterday, my wife came into our modest study and said, “You love D-Day.” It’s true – I love D-Day. I love movies about D-Day, books about it, TV specials on the History Channel, and especially, the photographs from the invasion of Normandy, 6 June 1944. In the photographs is where you really witness it. You see the uneasiness and the true terror of combat on the faces of those brave young men. In their faces, we see real people, not myth or nostalgia so frequent in the captions and descriptions of battle to follow. The photographs are the experience of war before we added the commentary afterward.
I also love what D-Day signifies through that lens of late 20th century myth. I am old enough to remember the commemorations and I am lucky enough to have known people who fought in the Second World War and then went off to seemingly normal lives. One of my great-uncles was shot down and spent 2.5 years in a German internment camp. After the war he became a minister. A good friend of my parents and grandparents, who died only a few weeks ago, was a fighter pilot in both Europe and the Pacific, flying photographic recon and fighter support for bombers. He became an optometrist and spent his post-war years in peace asking children and adults “is this better” as he adjusted their lenses. Another great-uncle, a man I never knew, was a Bronze Star winning infantryman in Patton’s Third Army and was wounded in the Bulge. He became a letter carrier. So many of us have stories like this.
The Second World War was one of national sacrifice. The veteran’s stories remind us of how seemingly normal their extraordinary actions were. Historians like Stephen Ambrose made careers on this theme – that the famed Band of Brothers was a collection of hearty boys who were made into men by the experience of war. Then, their lives went on. It is a tough thing for us to imagine now, the idea of the citizen soldier, because war is supposed to be so transformative, culturally as well as personally, for those who fight in it. After Vietnam, we are consumed, rightly or wrongly, with the internal transformation war has on the individual and the conspiracy of nations to weed out their young in tragic bloodletting. These are debatable and powerful themes and ones we should be discussing.
However, D-Day seems like a different age altogether. I have been to Omaha Beach, to Utah, Sword and to Point du Hoc. I have seen the landscape and the remaining bunkers and shell holes. I have seen the American Cemetery there with its acres of crosses. Yesterday, NPR played Reagan’s speech from 1984 “The Boys of Point du Hoc”, an address that still resonates today. Reagan seems like a relic of a past age as well because politicians don’t speak in grand narratives anymore. Maybe they don’t have the words or maybe they think they’ll appear insincere or won’t be accepted by a cynical public if they talk this way. Reagan took the chance and of all the tributes since 1984 to our “greatest generation”, his is the one we remember from that cliff overlooking the English Channel. He wasn’t a perfect president, but I have no doubt that Ronald Reagan was a man who had that rarest of modern virtues, conviction. For those of you who think that presidential rhetoric doesn’t matter, read the speech.
But we cannot forget the actions that Reagan was honoring and the dead who surely didn’t, in Lincoln’s words, “die in vain”. We memorialize to make sense of conflict, to honor the living as much as the dead, and we construct our historical memory, our narrative, from scraps of remembrances clouded in sentiment. This, however, doesn’t make them less true, gripping, or beautiful in their message and in the scope of their tragedy. Look to the faces of the men waiting to hit the beaches and tell me if it isn’t remarkable today to think that those men from yesterday suffered to free a continent mired in ethnic hatred and totalitarian oppression. It’s easy to speak of freedom but its another thing to volunteer your life for someone else’s. That’s what these men did and this is why I love D-Day.
Posted by Editor at 8:58 AM
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States 1924-1929
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Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our Allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.
And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:
Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.
Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.
They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.
They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest -- until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.
For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.
Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.
And for us at home -- fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them -- help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.
Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.
Give us strength, too -- strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.
And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.
And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keeness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment -- let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.
With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace -- a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States 1924-1929
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
Extremely touching. My father and his brothers fought in the South Pacific, my mother's brother in Europe. These were ordinary men who when called upon did extraordinary things. When I think of facing that dangers of storming the Normandy Beaches, I often wonder whether I could have done as well, and doubt whether I could have. These ordinary men became heroes by simply doing what they were called upon to do.
By the way, I in no way denigrate the courage and dedication of the Wehrmacht soldier who opposed this invasion. They to, in fighting for their country deserve the same honor and respect.
D-Day anniversaries give us the opportunity to pause and think about how much has been sacrificed to bring us where we are.
Provost
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States 1924-1929
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
My British grandfather fought the Japanese from India to Burma. His brother fell in iirc Burma. Both iirc were in the Royal Artillery. My German granddad was in Norway, North Africa and France.
Europe's first true UCAV - first flight 2010
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During the war, My grandfather rose from corporal to Major, and was in North Africa, Italy, and was in occupied Greece as part of special operations. They gave him MBE for whatever he did in Greece, but he never told anybody what exactly it was. My dad was able to get hold of the forms regarding it, but they weren't very specific.
As for my grandmother, she was his secretary once they gave him a desk job. So if it weren't for the war, I wouldn't be here.
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You seem to imply that all countries contributed the same to the war effort, that sir, is bias.
D-Day 5 beaches
2 British
1 Candian
2 US
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Perhaps not in total number, but percentage wise...you bet.
There is no doubt that there are countries that suffered more than any of the three you mentioned.
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