[Retain Mike]

I wrote this essay to be my contribution to remembering D-Day. I had much more contact with such men growing up than my peers, because about age twelve my dad began taking me out golfing on the weekends. Those men were in their 30’s and 40’s at that time and in the midst of careers and families. Parts of conversations about the WW II would occur as asides to a main subject. There were no war production plants our town, so it seemed everyone had served. Without exception I remember they seemed to regard that time as a rite of passage into adulthood. Of course, though I was not privy to the more private discussions they had with other veterans.

I cannot remember any paratroopers, but in college I often ended up as a dishwasher at the 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. He said he might have recovered better, but they weren’t relieved for two days and he was mustered out.

Here in real life was one of the men portrayed in the Longest Day. This is just one story among so many I remember and so many more I have forgotten. As a result, when the time came, I volunteered for the Navy officer program and ended up in Vietnam. It was simply my turn.

[ansel12]

Airborne to that.

[sasquatch]

Walter Munk did tide and wave calcs. for D-Day and other landings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Munk

[bigbob]

Very well done, thank you for writing and sharing it.

I’ve always been impressed with how Ike, despite all the actual uncertainty and an infinite number of ways things could go wrong, projected a sense of calm and confidence. No one could have been more immersed in the planning or more aware of the risks, but as a leader he know the importance of the role he and only he, could play. How much of a different it made is impossible to know, but I’ll always believe it was significant.

[If You Want It Fixed - Fix It]

We should not exempt anyone from the draft, only fight a war or policing action with a draft, and require everyone in political office to not exempt their family from the draft. And we should not take only the youngest for the draft.

If we are not all going to fight and suffer, and pray and bind together because of that, then the war or policing action isn’t worth the lives lost or taken.

Vietnam taught our leaders to not draft, so the Gulf War and Iraq Afganistan put all the burden on too few, who suffer today while everyone and the government has forgotten and moved on to the next chess move or passionate fight.

Nothing calms the passion to fight like bullets whizzing tge ears and mortars coming in. That’s what family needs to know, every family, in every office.

The laborers are few.

[After Hours]

Thank you!

Well written and researched. I’m afraid we could not even come close to the courage and leadership shown during WWII.

Sorry to be a downer, but by today’s standards, I doubt we could even generate enough power to run 24/7 manufacturing operations as they did then.

[Does so]

Recalling a story told by an Airborne pair years ago.

He and his companion were at a Florida CAF air show and told of the pair parachuting into an open field on D-Day. Nearby Wehrmacht soldiers behind a fence motioned for the two to approach them.

Seeing the two were in a hopeless situation, and about to become German prisoners, they complied. When they passed the fence, they saw a sign (in German) that showed they’d landed in a minefield!

[ABN 505]

There is a famous picture of Ike talking to a group of Paratroopers just before they loaded and took off ,my Dads platoon Sgt.[Bill Boyle] is in that picture along with his Ist. Lt.from the 502nd PIR. My dad stayed in touch with many of those guys for years, my Dads Boots and dog tags are now on display along with Bill Boyles Uniform in the Carenten Historical Airborne museum in France now.

[Inspectorette]

A moving tribute to the courage of these young men, thank you for this wonderful essay.

[M Kehoe]

Stand up, hook up, shuffle to the door.

5.56mm