[Retain Mike]

I wrote this essay to be my contribution to Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day. My greatest contact with these men started about age nine when my dad began taking me out golfing on the weekends. There was a man who used the first golf cart I ever saw, because as a brigade commander of the 41th infantry in New Guinea he was debilitated by sickness. I remember one fairly good golfer who had kind of a weird back swing, because he was crippled while serving with the Big Red One in Sicily. I often ended up as a dishwasher at Michelbook Country Club. I noticed the chef always limped as he moved around the kitchen. When he saw my puzzled look, he said he got the limp from a wound received when he was with the Rangers at Pointe De Hoc. Those are just a few of the stories I remember among so many I could relate or have forgotten.

My motivation for this subject and what I have a hard time understanding still is the casualty rates in those divisions chosen repeatedly for initial assaults. For the divisions with the high casualty rates, wouldn’t they have to reconstitute and retrain the rifle platoons every thirty to ninety days? However, that seems to have been the case, because I trust my sources and the math.

I know the corps and army commanders had favorites for the initial attacks and used these divisions repeatedly. It seems other divisions were usually sent to less active sectors, entered combat later in time, or occupied a flank in an attack.

[yarddog]

I guess the Infantry is what is often now called “the tip of the spear”. In WWII I think the armor was also one of the first if not the first in combat.

Daddy was in the Combat Engineers. I have noticed that former infantrymen always speak highly of them.

[ameribbean expat]

“The Army deployed 65 infantry divisions for the Second World War.”

The single most staggering statistic I have learned this veterans day, or in a long time for that matter.

To the guys who were a little before my time, but taught me much... thank you and Happy Veterans Day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUTQExmJ2qw

[ansel12]

I’ve never seen anyone spam with a thread so many times, what is this, the fifth thread of your vanity?

[Fester Chugabrew]

BUMP!

[Always A Marine]

As an old infantry officer, I found this a good read. Thank you.

[Talisker]

For example the 4th and 29th Infantry landed on D-Day and suffered about 500% battle casualties in their rifle platoons during the eleven months until VE-Day. ...There was a man who used the first golf cart I ever saw, because as a brigade commander of the 41th infantry in New Guinea he was debilitated by sickness.

Incredible.

[morphing libertarian]

Pics from the Past of WWII- It is amazing the difference in 70 years.

HOLD AND DRAG YOUR MOUSE ARROW GENTLY FROM LEFT TO RIGHT ON THE ORIGINAL 1944 PHOTOS AND IT WILL BECOME THE EXACT SAME LOCATION TODAY .... DRAG IT BACK OVER AND YOU ARE IN 1944 AGAIN. Then scroll down for next photo.
.
http://interactive.guim.co.uk/embed/2014/apr/image-opacity-slider-master/index.html?ww2-dday