NO SMOKING
It's bad for your health ...
Posted on 06/06/2022 8:22:38 AM PDT by Leaning Right
Given that today is the 78th anniversary of D-Day, I thought it might be nice to start a thread will folks can post personal stories related to the event - maybe something involving a friend or relative.
Here’s my contribution:
Back when I was in my 20s I worked security for a major university. One of the campus cops - I’ll call him Bill - was older than most of us. He was also fat and slow. Bill didn’t look anything like those slick cops you see on TV. Some of the younger campus cops made fun of him. Bill never argued back. He just took it.
Well, one day Bill brought a briefcase to roll call. He didn’t say a word, he just opened it up in front of us. In that briefcase were citations and rows of medals. Bill was an Army Ranger who landed on D-Day.
Nobody made fun of Bill after that.
NO SMOKING
It's bad for your health ...
More seriously ... interesting mix of M1 “Garand” rifles and M1 carbines.
This is also the anniversary of the Battle of Belleau Wood in 1918 in which the US Marines defeated the Germans and turned the tide of WWI.
Non-getty image, same content as post 3. I find the "NO SMOKING" sign amusing.
The best meme is one with the iconic landing craft picture on D- Day and the quote - “college kids leaving their safe space”.
My dad was on a troop ship that landed in Brisbane Australia several days after D day. That’s when he learned about it. His only impression of Australia was that they were given mutton for every meal. That and the heat made everyone sick
He later landed on Luzon with MacArthur
"How could that be?" the Frenchman harrumphed. "Every American needs a passport to enter France." The American replied, "my previous visit to France began on June 6, 1944. When I landed on Omaha Beach, no one there asked me for my passport."
“Which way to our safe place”
EVER FORWARD: Omaha Beach 
My father was a submariner in the Pacific. He said that they were often fed a meat referred to as "lamb," but everyone figured it was mutton.
And today we have “Republican” members of Congress who are ready and willing to throw all of those sacrifices in the trash.
YOUR SAFE SPACE IS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THOSE DAMN KRAUTS, SOLDIER!!!!!
My dad was in Operation Dragoon which was originally scheduled for 6 June but was delayed until 15 August.
The 36th Infantry Division was part of Operation Dragoon, a Division that I served in later, and my dad faced the German Luftwaffe, whose planes I was jumping out of to earn my German jump wings, of course, later.
My father and I had somewhat different experiences with the Germans.
My dad served on USS Yorktown and USS West Virginia during WWII. The Navy bought untold quantities of mutton from the Aussies during the war. My dad was so sick of the stuff that by the end of the war, that he would not allow my mom to fix anything for dinner that had sheep in it. Wasn’t until I left home at age 21 that tasted lamb or mutton for the first time.
That’s what their sergeant would have said and kicked his ass for asking it.
Today’s army would have given him a coloring book and crayons.
> My father and I had somewhat different experiences with the Germans. <
My father served in the Atlantic, on anti-submarine duty. He never served in the Pacific. He pretty much forgave the Germans, but he hated the Japanese until the day he passed. Pearl Harbor was too hard a thing to forgive.
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